By Crasterfarian
IN 634AD, life in Northumbria must have felt precarious for its people. Having already suffered a defeat and the loss of their king, Edwin, at the Battle of Hatfield Chase in late 633AD by Penda of Mercia and Cadwallon ap Cadfan, King of Gwynedd, invasion would have seemed imminent.
The subsequent murder of his successor and brother, Eanfrith, at the hands of Penda and Cadwallon under a flag of truce, would have left the whole of the North open to invasion, capitulation, slavery and a return to paganism.
Enter Oswald, on his return from exile.
He would go on to take these northern lands into a glittering age of unprecedented prosperity, where he would reunite the kingdoms of Deira and Bernicia back into Northumbria. But first, he had to defeat Cadwallon ap Cadfan…
Oswald was exiled as a young man and spent many years in Western Scotland, including time with the monks on Iona where he became a Christian, converted by the Celtic Christian monks.
Once back in Northumbria he would lead his own loyal warriors, combined with the land-owning ealdormen and thegns of Bernicia, in one of the most famous battles of the Dark Ages.
The word would have gone out by messenger, and the fyrd gathered to march to war.
Oswald would have marched southwest from Bebbanburg to join the Roman road known as the Devil’s Causeway near Chatton. This road which runs through Northumberland, forms part of the current route of the A697.
Meanwhile, Cadwallon was marching north from York along another Roman road, Dere Street — or Dierastrasse, as it was known then.
Armies move slowly, but individual scouts and spies travel much quicker, meaning the two converging armies will have had intelligence on the strength and numbers of each other’s forces.
Oswald would have been painfully aware that Cadwallon’s army was more than 40 percent greater than his own. It’s thought Oswald marched with 700 men-at-arms, while Cadwallon’s army numbered around 1,000.
Despite the size of the Welsh army, I think Oswald already had a plan and a battlefield in mind — one that would give him a tactical advantage. Perhaps this was an idea born from a story, a legend passed down to him by word of mouth, rolling back into the mists of time…
He wanted to utilise the narrow ground between Hadrian’s Wall and Brady’s Crag, to the west of Dierastrasse (Dere St).
After reaching the junction of Devil’s Causeway and the Dierastrasse, just north of Hadrian’s Wall, he continued west. The Devil’s Causeway didn’t end at Dere Street junction, it carried on west and joined the Maiden Way (a pre-Hadrian’s Wall construction).
His army would then ‘about-face’ and wait for Cadwallon’s to come through the Portgate and head west to engage them. Imagine that wait, knowing you were outnumbered almost 2-1 and that anything other than victory would mean the end of life and your kingdom as you knew it.
The Battle
The battle itself is well documented, and the original church built on the site dates to possibly the 7th century and built to commemorate the first time on English soil a cross had been raised before a battle.
Oswald and his brave Northumbrians prevailed, routing the Welsh and massacring them as they fled south. Cadwallon himself was finally caught and killed at the Rowley Burn where it joins Devils Water, some 10 miles to the south. But why this place, why here, miles from the Roman road?
Lesson from the Past?
In the court of the Kings of Northumbria there were many advisors and wise men. One of these was Bishop Paulinus, a Roman missionary sent to England in 601 AD as part of the Gregorian mission. He became the first Bishop of York and converted King Edwin of Northumbria to Christianity in 627 AD.
Like Edwin before him, Oswald was also advised by Bishop Paulinus (before Paulinus fled to Kent in 633 AD). I wonder if one of the many stories he told Oswald around the feasting table was of the Battle of Thermopylae (480 BC) — the famous engagement where 300 Spartans, led by King Leonidas, held a narrow mountain pass against a vastly larger Persian army under King Xerxes.
Was Heavenfield the Northumbrian Thermopylae?
Oswald’s chosen position at Heavenfield, with Hadrian’s Wall to one side and Brady Crag to the north, mirrors the bottleneck strategy of Thermopylae. By choosing this location, Oswald neutralised Cadwallon’s numerical advantage with the geography forcing the Welsh warriors into a narrow front, making it impossible to flank the Northumbrians.
As the shield walls crashed together and the men heaved to, slashing and stabbing at any exposed body parts, chopping and screaming at each other, face to face, close enough to smell each other’s breath, spilled guts, open bowels, slipping on blood and gore, fighting for their very lives, maybe some of them even plunged off the cliff edge?
In modern contexts, we can’t begin to understand what utter carnage a shield wall would have brought. The slightest falter and a breakthrough would mean certain death.
As men fell, the gap they left would be filled by another, standing on the corpses of the fallen, the dead and the dying. They were not only fighting for their own lives but those of their families and the preservation of the Northumbrian race.
There would have been other stories Oswald may have heard while sat round feasting tables and firesides.
The scops (pronounced ‘shops’), or storytellers, who recited the spoken word in the days before documentation, plied their trade around the feasting halls and camps.
Stories of the shadows and horrors of Teutoburg Forest would still have been spoken about on dark winter nights in hushed tones. The trauma of of this battle in 9 AD, where three Roman legions under Varus were ambushed and annihilated by Germanic tribes, would still have been fresh in the minds and poured out from the tongues of the scops.
The failure and utter loss of three full Roman legions at this ambush stemmed from the enemy’s knowledge of the landscape. In this theory, Oswald stands at a cultural crossroads — a Celtic Christian king shaped by Irish monasticism, but also a student (directly or indirectly) of Rome’s martial and spiritual legacy. Through Paulinus or others, stories like Thermopylae and Teutoburg may have filtered into Northumbrian consciousness.
Oswald didn’t just win a battle ay Heavenfield, he created a symbolic victory that blended Christian piety, classical strategy, and northern resilience.
Heavenfield, then, becomes more than a battlefield. It becomes a crucible where memory, myth, and military genius fused…..an English Thermopylae on the edge of the world.
With Love from the Crasterfarian xx
Wonderful theory. Oswald was a learned man having been raised in Ireland and probably would have read Plutarch as part of his education, so he would have known about Thermopylae and the Persian Wars.
Excellent article, Peter. Never looked at the battle from this angle before – makes a lot of sense.
Fascinating to see another possibility for this very shadowy subject.
The battle itself is not at all well documented, we only really have Bede to go on, and he does not appear to indicate there was an actual battle at Heavenfield, although tbf, the source is so sketchy that it could also be said that nowhere does he say there wasn’t a battle there.
I’m fascinated by considerations of the motives of the two men.
If Oswald’s aim was to stop Cadwallon at a natural bottleneck, why did he not use the bridge at Corbridge? To an extent this may depend on the time of year, as if the river was low, then the possibility of being outflanked via a ford would have been a real possibility.
Alternatively, and perhaps more reliably, if the wall was still pretty much complete, why not at Portgate, another bottleneck?
On the other hand, What was Cadwallon attempting to achieve? Was he just after Oswald, if so, then it would make sense for him to detour off his route to Heavenfield.
But if he was after seizing Bamburgh, and hence Bernicia, why bother to deviate? The route to Bamburgh was wide open, and probably ill-defended given Oswald’s warriors were with him – why not just go for it? He would have had Oswald on his tail it’s true, but with a smaller force, how much of a threat were they?
There are a couple of really good papers in the Hexham Historian, it’s not that well known as a publication, but may be accessible through a local library.
Tom Corfe’s article in HH7 (1997) takes another look at the sources and associated legends.
Clive Tolley’s in HH27 (2017) looks in particular at what the sources say, and don’t say, and offers an interesting alternative to Cadwallon’s direction of approach, and thus how Oswald may have set out to stop him. Exploring the possibility that Cadwallon was coming from Wales or another Celtic area to the SW, and heading for the bridge at Corbridge from that direction.
It’s a real puzzle, thanks!
Hi Dave
If you are saying the battlefield wasn’t where it says on the maps, and every other map I’ve seen then I’m not sore where to take this
That being the case it may have been at the portgate or the bridge at Corbridge, no one knows but you have to base a theory on some threads of fact like the battle being where it is
Why build a church there, which in the early medieval period would have been in the middle of nowhere
I’d be willing to bet that church stands on a much older wooden one raised to commemorate the battle
Cadwallon wouldn’t simply walk past a threat the size of Oswalds army, to attack Bamburgh, they’d follow him had he avoided the confrontation to head north,
They could then attack his softer rear like the wagon train and his supply line of food, servants starving him of supplies etc
Guerrilla style attacks from the rear would then have weakened Cadwallons army,
Did Oswald travel with his entire army to Heavenfiled, or did Oswald leave a reserve at Bamburgh meaning had Cadwallons army marched straight to Bamburgh to attack the fortifications there, and Oswald followed him, Cadwallon would be sandwiched between two possibly greater armies effectively outflanking himself by his own actions and trapping him in north Northumberland
The confrontation may have started at port gate, maybe a smaller band attacked the head of Cadwallons army as they emerged from the Portgate enticing them to try and route the Northumbrias, this theory meant Oswald led Cadwallon, by his Welsh ego to the battlefield Oswald had chosen
This is only my THEORY
The only truth is that this battle happened in the DARK AGES and by that very definition will remain a mystery until someone builds a Time Machine, maybe my business could design one, ah if only it were a feasible concept
Please don’t forget my entire business is built on my ability to understand a brief no matter how sparse the information and draw a conclusion, I do think of every scenario and this was the conclusion I arrived at
Best wishes
I can only suggest you read the detailed analysis of the original sources. It’s pretty clear that Oswald camped there, and raised the cross there prior to the battle, but there is no evidence that the battle happened here.
I respect your theory, it’s a view, but there are other theories. I am not attempting to diss your theory, merely pointing out that there is no evidence that the battle happened there.
Dave.