Eardwulf of Northumbria - Exile and Return

Exile and Return

Like many of his predecessors, Eardwulf took to exile when he was deposed. Unlike kings with ties to Lindisfarne, who appear to have chosen exile among the Picts, Eardwulf was linked to Ripon, and chose a southerly exile. The next reports of Eardwulf are in Frankish sources:

Meanwhile the king of the Northumbrians from the island of Britain, Eardwulf by name, being expelled from his kingdom and native land, came to the emperor while he was still at Nijmegen, and after he had made known the reason for his coming, he set out for Rome; and on his return from Rome he was escorted by envoys of the Roman pontiff and of the lord emperor back into his kingdom. At that time Leo III ruled over the Roman church, and his messenger, the deacon Ealdwulf from that same Britain, a Saxon by race, was sent to Britain, and with him two abbots, Hruotfrid the notary and Nantharius of St. Omer, sent by the emperor.

A surviving letter of Leo III to Charlemagne confirms that Eardwulf visited Rome and stayed at Charlemagne's court.

The Frankish source is clear that Eardwulf was "returned to his kingdom", but surviving Anglo-Saxon sources have no record of a second reign. Historians disagree as to whether Ælfwald was replaced by Eardwulf, who would thus have reigned a second time from 808 to 811 or 812, or whether the reign of Eardwulf's son Eanred began in 808.

Recent studies, based on the discovery of a penny of Eanred for which a date no earlier than c. 850 is proposed, suggest a very different dating for ninth-century Northumbrian kings. From this, it is argued that Eardwulf's second reign ended circa 830, rather than in the years soon after 810, and that the reigns of subsequent kings should be re-dated accordingly: Eanred from 830 to 854, Æthelred II from 854 to 862, Rædwulf in 858, and Osberht from 862 to 867.

Eardwulf is identified by historians with the Saint Hardulph or Hardulf to whom the Mercian royal church of Saint Mary and Saint Hardulph at Breedon on the Hill is dedicated. The connection, though unproven, has been made by several historians and is uncontroversial. Supporting evidence comes from a twelfth-century list of the burial places of saints compiled at Peterborough. This calls the Saint Hardulph to whom Breedon was dedicated "Hardulfus rex"—King Eardwulf—and states that he was buried at Breedon.

A panelled stone structure in the church, carved with processions of bearded and robed figures under arches, seems to reproduce details found in the Book of Cerne, a work associated with Bishop Æthelwold of Lichfield (818–830). The panels, which may originally have been the outer part of a sarcophagus built to hold the remains of a high status person such as Saint Hardulph, are dated by their similarity to the illustrations in the Book of Cerne to the first third of the ninth century. According to a medieval calendar of saints, the Benedictine monks at Breedon celebrated Hardulph's feast day on 21 August.

The death of Eardwulf is not recorded. Although he had faced considerable opposition, and had been driven into exile, he succeeded in founding a dynasty. His son Eanred and grandson Æthelred (II) ruled Northumbria for most of its remaining existence as an independent kingdom.