The FIRST BATTLE

At the end of the 7th century, a battle you've probably never heard of took place between two emerging nations, soon to be historic rivals. The fighting settled a border that still endures over 1,300 years later

- EDOARDO ALBERT

The red brick Roman walls of Carlisle loomed high over Cuthbert. The bishop of Lindisfarne had only arrived the day before, after a long and weary journey, and already his worthy hosts insisted that he come to see a fountain, built by the long-gone Romans and set into the city wall, that still flung water into the air.

“Bishop Cuthbert, this way,” said one. “The Roman fountain is just here.”

But as he turned to look at it, Cuthbert went pale. As if on the verge of fainting, he grabbed his staff and leant on it.

His hosts, alarmed for their guest, fanned air over him and sent for water. But Cuthbert turned haunted eyes towards them: “Now, as I speak, the battle is fought.”

It was 20 May 685. A Saturday. The men and women listening to him looked around nervously. A few weeks earlier, their king, Ecgfrith, ruler of Northumbria, had set off north from his stronghold at Bamburgh with his warband to ravage the holdings of Bridei, king of the Picts. For the last 50 years, under a succession of warrior kings, Northumbria had been the most powerful realm among Britain’s patchwork of kingdoms, its kings hailed as bretwalda – wide rulers over the other kings in the land. But King Ecgfrith had suffered a defeat six years earlier at the Battle of Trent against the rising power of the Mercians, leading to the loss of the kingdom of Lindsey (roughly modern-day Lincolnshire). Only the mediation of Theodore, the archbishop of Canterbury, a Greek who had been sent from Rome to take charge of the church in England, had prevented further bloodshed between the two kingdoms. The battle had been utter carnage with Ecgfrith’s younger brother among the dead.