Editing Æthelfrith (section)

== Background ==
Æthelfrith, son of [[Æthelric of Bernicia|Æthelric]] and grandson of [[Ida of Bernicia|Ida]], apparently succeeded [[Hussa of Bernicia|Hussa]] as king of the Bernicians around the year 592 or 593; Æthelfrith's accession may have involved dynastic rivalry and the exile of Hussa's relatives.<ref name="Ziegler">Michelle Ziegler, "[https://www.mun.ca/mst/heroicage/issues/2/ha2pen.htm The Politics of Exile in Early Northumbria] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110110054848/http://www.mun.ca/mst/heroicage/issues/2/ha2pen.htm |date=10 January 2011 }}", ''The Heroic Age'', Issue 2, Autumn/Winter 1999.</ref> The genealogies attached to some manuscripts of the ''[[Historia Brittonum]]'' say that Æthelfrith ruled Bernicia for twelve years and ruled Deira for another twelve years, which can be taken to mean that he ruled in Bernicia alone from about 592 to 604, at which point he also came to the throne of Deira.<ref>''Historia Brittonum'', [http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/nennius-full.html chapter 63]. See D. P. Kirby, ''The Earliest English Kings'' (1991, 2000), page 57, for interpretation of the chronology.</ref> His predecessors are obscure; Æthelfrith is the earliest Bernician ruler about whom any significant details are known.<ref name="Ziegler"/> The 20th-century historian [[Frank Stenton]] wrote that "the continuous history of Northumbria, and indeed of England, begins with the reign of Æthelfrith", and that "he was the real founder of the historic Northumbrian kingdom, and he was remembered as the first great leader who had arisen among the northern [[Angles (tribe)|Angles]]."<ref>Frank Stenton, ''Anglo-Saxon England'' (1943, 1971; 1998 Oxford paperback), pages 76–77.</ref>