Editing Rædwald of East Anglia (section)

== Rædwald and Edwin of Northumbria ==
=== Edwin's exile ===
Æthelfrith of Northumbria may have married [[Acha of Deira|Acha]],<ref>Ziegler, "Politics of Exile", [https://www.mun.ca/mst/heroicage/issues/2/ha2pen2.htm#note14 note 14] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120616074012/http://www.mun.ca/mst/heroicage/issues/2/ha2pen2.htm |date=16 June 2012 }}.</ref> who was the mother of his son [[Oswald of Northumbria|Oswald]] (born in about 604), according to Bede.<ref>Bede, ''Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation'', iii, p. 6</ref> Æthelfrith pursued Acha's exiled brother Edwin in an attempt to destroy him and ensure that the Bernician rulership of Northumbria would be unchallenged. Edwin found hospitality in the household of [[Cearl of Mercia]] and later married Cearl's daughter. Edwin's nephew Hereric, an exile in the British kingdom of [[Elmet]], was slain there under treacherous circumstances.<ref>Koch, ''Celtic culture: a historical encyclopedia'', vol. 1–5, [https://books.google.com/books?id=f899xH_quaMC&dq=Hereric+exile&pg=PA641 p. 641]</ref> Edwin eventually sought the protection of Rædwald, where he was received willingly. Rædwald promised to protect him, and Edwin lived with the king amongst his royal companions. When news of Edwin reached Æthelfrith in Northumbria, he sent messengers to Rædwald offering money in return for Edwin's death, but Rædwald refused to comply. Æthelfrith sent messengers a second and a third time, offering even greater gifts of silver and promising war if these were not accepted. Rædwald then weakened and promised either to kill Edwin or to hand him over to ambassadors.<ref name="Kirby52" />

When a chance arose for him to escape to a safe country, Edwin chose to remain at Rædwald's court.<ref name="Plunkett, p. 79"/> He was then visited by a stranger who was aware of Rædwald's deliberations. The source for this story, written at [[Whitby]], stated that the stranger was [[Paulinus of York]], a member of the Canterbury mission, who offered Edwin the hope of Rædwald's support and held out the prospect that Edwin might someday attain greater royal power than any previous English king.<ref>Plunkett, ''Suffolk in Anglo-Saxon Times'', p. 80</ref> Paulinus was assured by Edwin that he would accept his religious teaching. His vision of Paulinus was afterwards made the means of his decision to embrace Christianity, on the condition that he survived and achieved power. If, as is supposed by some, Paulinus appeared to him in the flesh, the bishop's presence at Rædwald's court would throw some light on the king's position regarding religion.<ref name=DNB>Hunt, "[[:s:Redwald (DNB00)|Redwald]]", ''[[Dictionary of National Biography]]'', p. 386</ref>

Rædwald's pagan queen admonished him for acting in a manner dishonourable for a king by betraying his trust for the sake of money and wanting to sell his imperiled friend in exchange for riches.<ref name="Kirby52" /> As a result of her admonishment, once Æthelfrith's ambassadors had gone, Rædwald resolved on war.<ref>Bede, ''Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation'', ii, 12</ref>

=== The Battle of the River Idle ===
{{See also|Battle of the River Idle}}
In 616 or 617, Rædwald assembled an army and marched north, accompanied by his son Rægenhere, to confront Æthelfrith. They met on the western boundary of the [[kingdom of Lindsey]], on the east bank of the [[River Idle]]. The battle was fierce and was long commemorated in the saying, 'The river Idle was foul with the blood of Englishmen'.<ref name="DNB" /> During the fighting, Æthelfrith and Rædwald's son Rægenhere were both slain. Edwin then succeeded Æthelfrith as the king of Northumbria, and Æthelfrith's sons were subsequently forced into exile.<ref>Newton, ''The Origins of Beowulf and the Pre-Viking Kingdom of East Anglia''. p. 104</ref>

A separate account of the battle, given by Henry of Huntingdon, stated that Rædwald's army was split into three formations, led by Rædwald, Rægenhere, and Edwin. With more experienced fighters, Æthelfrith attacked in loose formation. At the sight of Rægenhere, perhaps thinking he was Edwin, Æthelfrith's men cut their way through to him and slew him. After the death of his son, Rædwald furiously breached his lines, killing Æthelfrith amid a great slaughter of the Northumbrians.<ref>Forrester, ''The chronicle of Henry of Huntingdon'', p. 56</ref>

[[David Peter Kirby|D.P. Kirby]] has argued that the battle was more than a clash between two kings over the treatment of an exiled nobleman but was "part of a protracted struggle to determine the military and political leadership of the Anglian peoples" at that time.<ref name="Kirby52" />