Amazing story of the Anglo-Saxon warrior saint whose struggle to claim his rightful place as king inspired Tolkien’s Aragorn

• Oswald Iding was exiled from native Northumbria and grew up in Scotland
• But in 634, he returned to his homeland and claimed the throne
• New biography describes how he converted the English to Christianity and founded the great monastery of Lindisfarne
• Oswald’s quest to reclaim his birthright apparently inspired J.R. R. Tolkien, an Anglo-Saxon scholar, to write the story of Aragorn in Lord of the Rings
  

By Hugo Gye

King Oswald, the seventh-century ruler of Northumbria, is hardly a household name.

But as the man who helped unite Britain and convert the English to Christianity, he deserves to be much better remembered, according to one archaeologist.

Oswald was exiled as a young man before returning to his homeland in order to claim his birthright and become king – an adventure which apparently inspired J.R.R. Tolkien to create the character of Aragorn in Lord of the Rings.

Hero: The character of Aragorn in Lord of the Rings was inspired by Oswald, the seventh-century king of Northumbria, according to archaeologist Max Adams

Legacy: Oswald was instrumental in the foundation of Lindisfarne monastery, whose remains still stand

Artist’s impression: This mid-19th-century painting by Ford Madox Brown shows Oswald, left, receiving homage from Aidan, the Bishop of Lindisfarne; no image of the king survives from his lifetime

 

 

 

 

 

Max Adams, a visiting fellow at Newcastle University, has written a biography of Oswald which argues that the king – later venerated across Europe as a saint and martyr – was a key figure in rebuilding the English state after the collapse of the Roman Empire.

The book, entitled King in the North, describes how Oswald Iding was born into the royal house of Bernicia, a kingdom covering the territory which is now Northumberland, County Durham and south-east Scotland.

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His father Æthelfrith united Bernicia with Deira, a territory roughly corresponding to modern Yorkshire, to create the land of Northumbria – but in 616, when Oswald was just 12 years old, Æthelfrith was killed in battle, and his son was forced to flee England and take refuge in western Scotland.

The new king of the Northumbrians, Edwin, was a distant cousin of Oswald, but that would not have saved the young prince from the wrath of a ruler keen to eliminate potential rivals.

Treasure: The great Lindisfarne Gospels, now in the British Library, would not exist if Oswald had not kept his vow to St Columba to found a new religious institution

 

Stunning: The opening of St Matthew’s Gospel from the Lindisfarne manuscript, written at the Northumbrian monastery less than a century after the death of Oswald

 

Home: Oswald was from the fortress of Bamburgh, whose later replacement is pictured here

Family tree: Oswald was the product of a marriage between the royal lines of Bernicia and Deira

 

 

 

For nearly two decades, Oswald grew up in the kingdom of Dal Riata, an Irish-speaking region covering the west coast of Scotland and part of Ulster.

Crucially for Britain’s future, it was here – at the monastery of Iona, in the Hebrides – that Oswald was converted to Christianity, having previously followed the pagan faith of his Germanic ancestors.

It was also in Dal Riata that the young man forged a reputation as a warrior, fighting alongside his Celtic hosts and earning the nickname ‘Whiteblade’, according to Mr Adams.

When his uncle Edwin was killed by a Welsh king in 633, Oswald decided it was time to reclaim the kingdom which he was born to rule, and he marched south with an army the next year.

Before meeting the enemy in battle, the prince erected a cross at a site called Heavenfield, near Hexham in Northumberland, and prayed to St Columba – promising to found a monastery if his prayer was answered.

Fame: A decorated box made in Germany in the 12th century to hold some of the remains of King Oswald, who was venerated across Europe as a saint and martyr

 

Inspiration: Aragorn, left, was apparently based on Oswald by Lord of the Rings author J.R.R. Tolkien, right

 

Power: This entry from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle claims that Oswald held hegemony over the other kingdoms in England during his reign

 

HOW OSWALD’S STORY MIRRORS THE EPIC LEGEND OF BEOWULF

King Oswald of Northumbria was a crucial figure in early English politics, but author Max Adams believes that he is also linked to the Anglo-Saxons’ greatest cultural achievement – Beowulf.

The epic poem is set in a great feasting hall, Heorot, which Mr Adams compares directly to the halls where Oswald held court.

It is not known when Beowulf was written, but the poem contains references to both Christianity and paganism, suggesting that it might date to the period of conversion when Oswald ruled.

Mr Adams says that he is not the first scholar to link the heroic king with the fictional warrior.

‘Tolkien thought there was a link between Oswald and Beowulf’, Mr Adams told MailOnline – adding that the character of Aragorn might have been created as a composite of both men.

In Beowulf, the eponymous hero leaves his home, the land of the Geats, to fight on behalf of the Danes, before returning to claim the Geat throne.

The story bears striking similarities to that of Oswald, an exile who won back his birthright – not to mention that of Aragorn’s quest to become king of Gondor after helping lead the mission to destroy the all-powerful Ring.

Oswald was successful in battle and finally became king of Northumbria at the age of 30. He subsequently expanded his power, and was said by later Anglo-Saxons to have been the overlord of all England, as well as receiving tribute from the Scots and the Welsh.

However, Mr Adams claims that Oswald’s greatest achievement was not political, but cultural – fulfilling his vow to St Columba, the king set up a new monastery, populated by Irish monks, on the island of Lindisfarne.

The community is now famous for producing the Lindisfarne Gospels, one of the most magnificent manuscripts in history, but Mr Adams insists that its significance, as the first religious institution set up by an English king, is much greater.

‘It’s the first state institution since Roman times,’ the author told MailOnline. ‘Oswald is the king who first makes Britain Christian – he binds church and state together.’

The tradition of state-backed religion started by Lindisfarne was responsible for many of the key moments in British history, according to Mr Adams, from the Crusades to the Reformation.

Oswald also seems to have had an impact on the English landscape, by developing the unique palace site of Yeavering, a few miles from the modern border with Scotland.

This stronghold, occupied by several generations of Northumbrian kings, has been found to contain not only the drinking halls which many associate with the medieval period, but a bizarre ‘grandstand’ where kings could address their subjects or vice versa.

Palace: Yeavering, now a desolate site near the Scottish border, was a thriving royal complex in Oswald’s time

 

Remnants: ‘Oswald’s gate’ is the only part of the seventh-century fortress at Bamburgh which survives today

 

Death: ‘Oswald’s well’ in Oswestry, Shropshire is said to mark the site where the king died in 642

 

Oswald ruled for eight years, before being killed in battle by the pagan King Penda, of neighbouring Mercia, at the battle of Maserfield – thought to have taken place near the town of Oswestry in Shropshire.

Under normal Dark Age circumstances, that might have been the end of his Northumbrian kingdom – but thanks to the institutions created by Oswald, his younger brother Oswiu was able to take over, and the state survived intact.

‘For the first time, there’s an idea that the state might survive the king, which is the beginning of the world we live in today,’ Mr Adams says.

Despite Oswald’s importance in forging the origins of the English government, we know very little about him as an individual person. The Venerable Bede, the great historian who told us nearly everything we know about seventh-century England, was more interested in religious controversy than in the personality of kings.

Book: King Oswald’s story is told in a biography by Max Adams entitled The King in the North

 

‘We can’t tell how tall he is, or what he looks like,’ Mr Adams says.  ‘But he’s probably more magical because we don’t know enough to know what a thug he probably was.’

Oswald is not the only Anglo-Saxon king who helped craft the world we live in today – Offa, Alfred the Great and Ethelred the Unready were at least as influential – but Mr Adams says he perfectly embodies the clash of values which defined the transition from the ancient past to an England we can still recognise.

In The King in the North, Mr Adams writes: ‘In Oswald, pagan and Christian, British and Germanic, sacral and temporal were fused as in no other king of the early medieval period.’

As a resident of the far north of England, the author was also attracted to Oswald because of the possibility of re-tracing the landscape where he lived, whether by returning to landmarks such as Lindisfarne (also known as Holy Island) and Bamburgh Castle, or by mapping out the smaller centres of power which defined how people lived.

One previous writer who seems to have been inspired by the story of Oswald was Tolkien – who, when not penning his tales of Middle Earth, was Professor of Anglo-Saxon at the University of Oxford.

Mr Adams believes that Oswald’s return to his homeland after a long exile, winning the throne by bravery in battle, inspired the character of Aragorn, who joins Frodo the hobbit on a quest to destroy the Ring before returning to Gondor, the land of his ancestors, and claiming his rightful place as king.

‘Tolkien is extremely familiar with Oswald’s story,’ the author says. ‘He fulfils that need for a heroic type. The idea of the returning righteous hero is absolutely central to Tolkien’s work.’

According to Mr Adams, both Oswald and Aragorn fulfil a universal human need – the desire for a comeback, which can still be a powerful narrative for modern-day sportsmen and celebrities.

While the seventh-century king is little-known today, he was famous across Europe for several centuries after his death – not as a ruler, but as a saint.

Oswald’s legacy continued throughout the medieval period, as his bones were scattered around Europe and treasured by the religious communities which held them.

The King in the North: The Life and Times of Oswald of Northumbria, by Max Adams, is published by Head of Zeus and is out now.

From:’Dailymail’