Back in the mists of time and among the fogs of the Cheviots and the sea fret coming off the North Sea onto the Northumberland coast, there were the beginnings of a kingdom called Northumbria. It was a messy start, as is often the case, when a new kingdom is established, and its story had many a twist and tale. But one figure stood out perhaps more than any other; Oswald, the Northumbrian king who was to become a saint.
In this book, Max Adams expertly charts the development of Bernicia and Deira and their coming together as one kingdom of Northumbria in the 7th century, taking King Oswald, the victor at the legendary Battle of Heavenfield, next to Hadrian’s Wall as the key protagonist through which to tell this multi-faceted story.
In so doing Adams takes us on a journey through a time, which we struggle to fully understand as written resources are few and far between and other artefacts are similarly somewhat scarce. Consequently, the author is very careful about conclusions he draws, but this serves to enhance those that he can come to.
While it is a somewhat hidden history, it is also a glorious one, and in the story laid before us, we see the seeds being sown for the Golden Age of Northumbria, with the conversions to Christianity after Oswald becomes king and his alliance with Aidan of Lindisfarne and the work of Aidan’s successor St Cuthbert. It is a reminder of when our region was truly a beacon of light in a dark and violent time in European history when civilisation in the words of Kenneth Clark the renowned historian, hung on “by the skin of its teeth”.
Max Adams is a very fastidious writer and gives us a remarkable amount of detail about a time which is somewhat shrouded in mystery. His archaeologist’s training has clearly come in handy as his eye for both detail and hard evidence drive the story forward, without the prose ever becoming too academic. It’s a confusing story, but with the aid of timelines, family trees and appendices, Adams helps us to get to grips with it.
This is well worth a read for anyone interested in the foundation story of Northumbria – and how the building blocks were put in place for the Golden Age that was to come.
Interview with Max Adams, archaeologist and author
What is your background?
I was born and brought up in London and then I studied archaeology in York. There was a very small department with only twelve of us there and it was a great way to learn. I dug large numbers of holes and became a field archaeologist until the 1990s. I did work with ITV, lived in woodland near Beamish and I had my lucky break in 2003 with money for travel.
It was then that I came across Lord Collingwood and did a short thing on him for Tyne-Tees. I thought about how nobody had written a book about Lord Collingwood, so I wrote one. I sold the book on the back of the programme and thought I could try writing. I also came across John Martin the painter and so wrote a book about him and his group of friends who were inventors, poets etc in London, many of whom were from the North East. They were an eccentric group, but the book didn’t sell so going back to the roots I thought I’d quite like to do a biography of neglected North East people and I chose Oswald, found a new publisher and we had three reprints of the book King in the North. I have been lucky ever since to sell enough books and with some archaeology to keep me going. I try to spin a yarn and coming from a semi academic background have an ear for what they would say. and make sure I get scholarship in, with evidence for what I say.
How did King in the North come about?
Writing about early medieval times works on a particular set of rules. We know the rules quite well; people are still people like ourselves and the landscape hasn’t changed I can stand on the castle ramparts of Bamburgh, looking at Holy Island, with basically the same view as Oswald would have seen and the Cheviots are still there so that landscape allows me a way in.
In what ways should we remember our heritage from the 7th Century and how important is the heritage to our identity?
Next year I will have lived half of my life in the North East. I know the North East geographically now and I wouldn’t move anywhere else. North East people don’t shout about how great it is like others do about their places! I am an outsider and some of the best writing on places has been done by outsiders. You do have some advantages as you can perhaps sometimes see a bigger picture. The history partly is about deep time; those prehistoric monuments, Hadrian’s Wall and of course we had the oldest house in Britain at Howick on the Northumberland coast until recently an older house was found.
The region is also the birth place of the industrial revolution. People like Ambrose Crowley, Stephenson and Buddle and we had the first locomotive and somewhere in all of it is the story of the Border Reivers.
Indeed, the history here is rich as anywhere and an important feature of the North East character, which shakes its fist at the world then rolls up its sleeves and gets on with things.
There are great things being done with lifelong learning and it is good to be able to share my love of deep time. And of course we also have Bede.
Bede is a figure of European significance and even though there is some bias in his writing, he was such a good writer, that he leaves his clues, so that we can put right his bias. His was an astonishing intellectual achievement; nothing else from anybody else in mediaeval Europe comes close.
Then there is Robert Stephenson who was the genuine article as an innovator. It is a remarkable area, the North East. After all when Collingwood was born the castle was still a Border Garrison,
It is also easy to get out of Newcastle; you can get from the amazing view from the Glasshouse over the Tyne to Newcastle with all the layers of history, to being out in the wilds and complete solitude in 40 minutes. I like to go places like College Valley in Northumberland, where it is so quiet.
What do we have to learn from all those years ago and should we be more interested in this history?
I find young people tend not to be so interested in history. Sadly, industrial history is not being taught in a very interesting way and neither is art history. People get jobs and get busy and have no time for history, until they get retired. I have sympathy with teachers who often spend time having to do crowd control and constantly having to assess progress. However young people love the Horrible Histories books and of course Terry Deary is a North Easterner as well.
Regional television used to be quite distinctive and history from the region was put forward, but now there’s really no local history on it. When people like Grundy and Eric Robson and so on left, nobody replaced them. It’s a real shame as television could reach a million people, whereas one of my talks could perhaps reach at most about 80 people.
History is interesting, when it is about connection for example finding connections to John Martin and this group and talking about how they thought they could change the world. Writing about Oswald has been successful, but we do need the story telling to be done right and some historians do not have strong storytelling ability.
Writing The King in the North seems a long time ago now. my most recent book is called the Mercian Chronicles, so I’m looking at that period of history from a different angle, from the kingdom to the south of Northumbria, but at the same time it’s good because I’m looking at the North East from a new angle which is always a good thing to do.
The King in the North: The Life and Times of Oswald of Northumbria (Paperback) is published by Bloomsbury Publishing PLC.
