Battle of Hatfield Chase
Categories: 633 | Battles of the Anglo-Saxons | History of Wales | Battle stubs | United Kingdom history stubs
The Battle of Hatfield was fought on October 121, 632 (or 633) near Doncaster, Yorkshire, in Anglo-Saxon England between the Northumbrians under Edwin and an alliance of the Welsh of Gwynedd under Cadwallon ap Cadfan and the Mercians under Penda. It was a decisive victory for the Welsh and Mercians: Edwin was killed and his army was defeated, leading to the temporary collapse of the Northumbrian state.
Edwin, the most powerful ruler in Britain at the time, had defeated Cadwallon a few years before the battle, taking Anglesey and besieging Cadwallon on the nearby small island of Priestholm. Later, Cadwallon, who allied with Penda (whose status in Mercia at this point is uncertain—Bede suggests he was not yet king, but became king soon after Hatfield), met Edwin in battle at Hatfield , north of Doncaster.
The battle was a disaster for Northumbria. With both Edwin and his son Osfrith killed, and his other son Eadfrith captured by Penda (and later killed), the kingdom disintegrated. Eanfrith, a son of the former king Æthelfrith, returned from exile to seize power in one of the Northumbrian sub-kingdoms, Bernicia, while Edwin's cousin Osric took over the other sub-kingdom, Deira. Cadwallon continued to wage a war of ruthless slaughter against the Northumbrians, and was not stopped until the Battle of Heavenfield a year later.
The historian D. P. Kirby suggested that the defeat of Edwin was the outcome of a wide-ranging alliance of interests opposed to him, including the deposed Bernician line of Aethelfrith; such an alliance must not have survived the battle for long.
Note
- Bede gives the date as October 12 in his Ecclesiastical History of the English People (Book II, Chapter XX), but the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle gives the date as October 14.de:Schlacht von Hatfield Chase