Bamburgh Castle
The North East's most imposing fortification and the ancient seat of the Northumbrian Kings
For over 3,000 years people have occupied this rocky outcrop on the Northumbrian coast. While the modern day castle is the product of Victorian restoration, the site rose to prominence in the Brythonic period, strengthened in the Anglo-Saxon and Norman periods and fell in 1464 at the height of the Wars of the Roses. Bamburgh has more recently shot to fame as a result of the BBC/Netflix TV series The Last Kingdom - which also reinvigorated interest in Bernard Cornwell’s book series The Saxon Stories - as the ancestral home of the story’s central protagonist, Uhtred of Bebbanburg.
Bamburgh is best known as being the ancestral seat of the Northumbrian kings of Bernicia, the northern half of the greater kingdom of Northumbria - its other half being Deira, which has its power centre in Yeavering and York. At the beginning of February, I was fortunate enough to visit this phenomenal fortress for the first time. Having read about the castle and seeing it on TV, it was incredible to walk in the footsteps of one of my fictional and historical heroes, but of course, like many of these things, it inspired me to delve deeper and look into the castle’s medieval history.
Anyone who has seen Bamburgh in person knows that it is a formidable sight to behold, built on top of a black crag of volcanic dolerite, and part of the Whin Sill - a geological tabular of igneous rock dolerite in County Durham, Northumberland and Cumbria that sits just inside the North Pennines- it is a perfect site for a fortress. The location was previously home to a fort of the indigenous Celtic Britons that once populated the British Isles before the migration of the Saxons, Angles, Jutes and Frisians in the mid-400s. It was known as Din Guarie in Brythonic. It is considered to be the capital Bernicia from as early the realm's foundation in 420, it was the home of the Gododdin* people, until 547 - the year of the first written reference to the castle - when it was captured by the Anglo-Saxon ruler Ida of Bernicia (Beornice).
The castle was briefly retaken by the Britons from his son Hussa during the war of 590 before being retaken later the same year. In 600, Hussa's successor Æthelfrith passed it on to his wife Bebba. It is from her that we get the name Bebbanburh, broken down it is Bebba’s Burh. During this period the Angle states of Bernicia and Deira were often in conflict, and it wasn’t until 651 that they had a semi-permanent unification under King Oswiu. A king of Bernicia, Æthelfrith - Ida’s grandson - was the first ruler to unite the two polities as one dominion.
He exiled the Deiran Edwin to the court of King Rædwald of East Anglia (who is believed to have been the king buried at Sutton Hoo) in order to claim both kingdoms. However, Edwin returned in 616 to conquer Northumbria with Rædwald's aid. This in turn would mean that Æthelfrith’s children Oswald and Oswiu would go into exile. They were sent to Dál Riata in northern Britain for the remainder of their youth, and Oswald would convert to Christianity and potentially travel in Ireland. Despite this, Northumbria was becoming a powerhouse in the Anglo-Saxon world, long before the rise of Wessex, it would be Northumbrian and Mercia that were fighting it out for domination, as the next conflicts show.
Edwin would rule from 616 to 633, an as a result of his Deiran ancestry, the power base of Northumbria would move away from Bamburgh to Yeavering in the East Riding of Yorkshire. He was one of the last kings of the Deiran line to reign over all of Northumbria. Turmoil for Northumbria would strike when Edwin fell in the battle at Hatfield Chase in 633 against Cadwallon ap Cadfan, the king of Gwynedd, in alliance with the pagan Penda of Mercia - a man worthy of a post of his own. As a result Northumbria was, once again, split into its constituent kingdoms of Bernicia and Deira. However, that didn’t stop the line of succession, Oswald's brother Eanfrith became king of Bernicia briefly but was killed by Cadwallon in 634 after attempting to negotiate peace with the Welsh king. Subsequently, Oswald would return from exile at the head of a small army (with allies from the north, the Scots and possibly the Picts), met Cadwallon in battle at Heavenfield, near Hexham.
Following this incredible victory, Oswald reunited Northumbria and re-established the Bernician supremacy, which had been interrupted by Edwin. He would rule until 642, when he too was felled by the might Penda of Mercia. His brother Oswiu would ascend to the Northumbrian throne, despite Deiran attempts to pull away, the Bernician supremacy remained with Bamburgh as a power base. Yet, this unification wasn't to last. In sight of the castle walls lies the holy island of Lindisfarne, the home of St. Cuthbert. In 793 the first of the truly devastating Viking raids on Northumbria would take place, plundering the holy island and sending shockwaves through the British isles.
For the next 70 years Vikings would plunder and pillage Northumbria, once again causing it to split into two kingdoms and with it the Northumbrian glory days were over - and by the same extent Mercia - and the rise of Wessex began. In 865 the Great Heathen Army would sweep Northumbria under the rug, fighting in Northumbria in 866–867, striking York twice in less than year. The divisions of the old kingdoms reared their heads as the Northubrians squabbled over their rulers Kings Ælle and Osberht and both were slaughtered by Vikings in the end. After Ælfred re-established control in Wessex and agreed the terms of what would be the Danelaw, the Norse conquerers would settle down.
The Norse established the Kingdom of York whose boundaries were roughly the River Tees and the Humber, which is similar to the dimensions of Deira. Although in later years this kingdom fell to Hiberno-Norse** colonisers in the 920s and was in constant conflict with the West Saxon expansionists, the kingdom survived until 954 when the last Scandinavian king Eric - more commonly known as Eric Bloodaxe - was driven out and eventually killed.
Yet the Norse never gained full control beyond the river Tyne, meaning that Bamburgh was still the base of Bernician kings, with Ecgberht I - who was supposedly a client king of the Norse - acting as regent in around 867 and the kings Ricsige and Ecgberht II immediately following him. Eadwulf "King of the North Saxons" (890–912) succeeded Ecgberht II for control of Bamburgh, but after Eadwulf's death rulership of this area switched over to earls who were possible kinsmen or direct descendants of the royal Northumbrian house.
One of these earls was Uhtred of Bamburgh, ealdorman of Northumbria from 1006 to 1016. He is most famous for campaigning with Æthelred the Unraed's son Edmund Ironside in Cheshire and the surrounding shires after the invasion of England from Sweyn Forkbeard in 1013. While Uhtred was away from his lands with Edmund, Sweyn's son, Cnut - the eventual king of England, Denmark and Norway - invaded Yorkshire. Cnut's forces were too strong for Uhtred to fight. Spotting this, Uhtred did betrayed the English and paid homage to Cnut as King of England. Uhtred was summoned to a peace-meeting with Cnut, however on the way there, he and forty of his men were murdered by Thurbrand the Hold at Wighill with the connivance of Cnut.
The Normans were the next rulers of Bamburgh. They built a new castle on the site and it is what forms the core of the modern castle today. In 1095, William II Rufus, unsuccessfully besieged it during a revolt supported by its owner, Robert de Mowbray, Earl of Northumbria. After this Bamburgh then became the property of the reigning English monarch. It wasn’t until 1164, during the reign of Henry II, that the central keep was built - it remains at the heart of the modern day castle and is a testament to medieval construction.
The castle was reward by Richard I Lionheart to Sir John Forster for his service after the Siege of Acre in 1191. He became the first governor of Bamburgh Castle, the Forster family of Northumberland continued to provide the Crown with successive governors of the castle - this was until the Crown granted ownership of the church and the castle to another Sir John Forster in the mid-1500s, after the Dissolution of the Monasteries (1536-1541) by Henry VIII.
During the second Scottish wars of Independence (1332–1357), King David II of Scotland was held prisoner at Bamburgh Castle after defeat to the English at the Battle of Neville's Cross (near Durham) in 1346. The castle’s final act in the medieval period came during the Wars of the Roses, where it was the subject of a nine-month siege by Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick, the "Kingmaker". This was on behalf of the Yorkist faction lead by Edward IV. It was a siege that is noted for its extensive use of artillery. As a result, Bamburgh became the first English castle to fall to artillery fire.
In more modern history, the castle had a plethora of different purposes until it was bought for £60,000 in 1894 by Victorian industrialist William Armstrong, who restored the castle and it eventually became the family home.
To be in such a historically significant place was a humbling experience, and one that I am very grateful for. Connecting with the kings and people of the historical period that I love was a truly significant moment for me. Although I didn’t make it to Lindisfarne this time, to be in touching distance of an island that was at the heart of the beginning of the Viking age is something that will stay with me. Now when I indulge myself in a binge watch of The Last Kingdom, I can reflect on my time at this phenomenal castle.
Notes
*The Gododdin - A people group who lived in the area known as the Hen Ogledd or Old North (modern south-east Scotland and north-east England) where Bamburgh is located. They are best known as the subject of the 6th-Century Welsh poem Y Gododdin, which memorialises the Battle of Catraeth (Catterick, North Yorkshire) and is attributed to Aneirin, a bard or court poet in one of the Cumbric kingdoms of the Hen Ogledd.
**Hiberno-Norse - A people of mixed Gaelic and Norse ancestry and culture. They emerged in the Viking Age, when Vikings who settled in Ireland and in Scotland became Gaelicised and intermarried with Gaels.
Bibliography
Aneirin, (600), The Gododdin: Lament for the Fallen, Faber & Faber, translated by Clarke, G.
The Venerable Bede, (731), Ecclesiastical History of the English People, Penguin Classics, Penguin Publishing, translated by Latham, R., Sherley-Price, L. with and introduction by Farmer, D. H.
Nennius, (828), Historia Brittonum, Medieval Sourcebook, Fordham University
The History Files, (retrieved 2018) Kingdoms of the British Celts
Hope-Taylor, B., (1977), Yeavering: An Anglo-British centre of early Northumbria, Stationery Office Books, English Heritage
Adams, M., (2013), The King in the North: The Life and Times of Oswald of Northumbria, Head Zeus
Swanton, M. J., (2021), The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Weidenfeld & Nicolson
Rickard, J., (6 December 2013), Siege of Bamburgh Castle, June-July 1464, HistoryOfWar.org