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 ‘before Lammas’ the other at Stafford, the stone ford by which the Chester road crossed the little river Sow (Conq. of England, p. 201). It is evident that she had plenty of trouble with the Welsh, for in 914 she fortified Eddisbury, immediately to the south of the Weaver, and ‘after harvest’ guarded central Mercia, barring invaders from the Fosse way by planting a garrison at Warwick, where she built a ‘burh,’ still commemorated by the large earthwork between the present town and the Avon (ib. 202). She next built Cherbury and Warbury, and then fortified Runcorn on the estuary of the Mersey. In 916 she inflicted a severe blow on the Welsh of Gwent; her army stormed Brecknock, and took the king's wife and thirty-four others prisoners. This victory probably put an end to the troubles on the western border of Mercia, for the ‘lady’ now turned on the Danish confederacy of the Five Boroughs and laid siege to Derby, where the king of Gwent is said to have taken shelter. The town was taken by storm, and four of Æthelflæd's thegns were slain within the gates, which caused her great sorrow; the conquest of the town brought with it the dominion of all the district pertaining to it. Early the next year, probably 918, Leicester was surrendered to her, and a large part of the Danes there became subject to her. The Danes of York also made peace with her, and bound themselves by oath to obey her. Shortly after this she died at her palace at Tamworth on 12 June, in the eighth year of her sole rule, and was buried at St. Peter's at Gloucester. She was wise, just, and righteous, and walked in the ways of her father. After her death Eadward took the Mercian ealdormanship into his own hand, and carried away her daughter Ælfwyn into Wessex. In one (the Winchester) version of the chronicle Æthelflæd's death is given under 922; this date, though sometimes adopted (Conquest of England, p. 191), can scarcely be correct, for the Worcester chronicler assigns it to 918, Æthelweard, the ‘Cambrian Annals,’ and the ‘Annals of Ulster’ to that year or the year before, and Florence to 919; and as it is certain that Æthelred died either in 911 or 912, and that his widow died in the eighth year of her sole government, it is impossible that the date of her death should be later than 919, while the balance of authorities inclines decidedly to 918.

[Anglo-Saxon Chron., especially the Mercian Annals inserted in Cott. Tiber. A. vi., and the Worcester version; Florence of Worcester (Engl. Hist. Soc.); William of Malmesbury, Gesta Regum (Engl. Hist. Soc.); Henry of Huntingdon, Æthelweard, Annales Cambrenses, Mon. Hist. Brit.; Three Fragments of Irish History by Dubhaltach MacFirbisigh, ed. O'Donovan (Irish Archæol. and Celtic Soc.); Lappenberg's Anglo-Saxon Kings, ii. 85–96; Green's Conquest of England, pp. 191, 196–207.] 

ETHELFRID, ÆTHELFRITH, or AEDILFRID (d. 617), king of the Northumbrians, called Flesaurs (, c. 63), the son of Æthelric of Bernicia, who conquered Deira (A.-S. Chron.,, sub an. 588), and reigned over both the Northumbrian peoples, succeeded his father in 593. He wasted the British more than any English king that had been before him, either driving them out and putting English settlers in their place, or subduing them and making them tributary (, Hist. Eccl. i. 34). The first of his wars of which there is any record was against an invader. The Scots of Dalriada, whose kingdom lay to the east of the Drumalban range, and extended as far north as the mouth of Loch Leven, had now risen to considerable power under their king, Aidan [q. v.], and had driven the English out of the debatable district called Manann to the south of the Firth of Forth. In 603 Aidan marched at the head of a great host of Scots, Britons, and Irish into Liddesdale, on the border between Bernicia and Stratchlyde. Æthelfrith met the invaders at a place called Dægastane, and almost entirely destroyed them, though his brother Theobald, also called Eanfraith (, sub an. 600), was slain, and the part of the army under his leadership was overthrown. The English victory was decisive, for Bæda says that from that time on to his own day (731) no king of Scots dared to enter Britain to give battle to the English. Dægsastane is most probably Dawstone in Liddesdale, where certain standing stones on Nine Stone Rig and in the neighbourhood and a huge cairn may be taken as marking the site of the battle, while there are also strong earthworks not far off (, Celtic Scotland, p. 162). It is possible that up to this time Æthelfrith had been fully engaged in the northern part of his dominions, and had had little leisure to assert his power in Deira, and that this victory enabled him to bring the kingdom his father had taken from the sons of Ælle into immediate dependence upon himself; for it is said (, c. 63) that he reigned twelve years in Berneich (Bernicia) and another twelve in Deur (Deira). In 613 he extended his kingdom to the western sea, and marched on Chester with a large force. The Welsh gave him battle, and were defeated with great slaughter. Before the battle began Æthelfrith saw the monks of Bangor Yscoed, where there was a vast monastic settlement containing over two thousand brethren, stand-