Eardwulf was king of Northumbria from 796 to 806, and perhaps from 808 to 811 or 812, although his second reign is not recorded in any surviving sources.

Background

Nothing is certainly known of Eardwulf's background. Symeon of Durham's History of the Kings records that his father's name was also Eardwulf. Barbara Yorke proposed that Eardwulf was a descendant of Eanwine—killed in 740 on the orders of King Eadberht—the son of Eadwulf, who was king for a short time after Aldfrith's death.

On 23 September 788, King Ælfwald I was murdered by the patrician Sicga near Hexham, and Ælfwine's cousin, Osred, son of Alhred, was made king. Osred was deposed after a year, and the exiled Æthelred, son of Æthelwald Moll, who had been deposed in 778 at a young age, was restored to the kingship.

Eardwulf appears to have been an enemy of the new king and he first appears in the historical record circa 790. Symeon of Durham reports:

duke Eardulf was taken prisoner, and conveyed to Ripon, and there ordered by the aforesaid king [Æthelred] to be put to death without the gate of the monastery. The brethren carried his body into the church with Gregorian chanting, and placed it out of doors in a tent; after midnight he was found alive in the church.

Eardwulf's whereabouts following this are unknown. In surviving King Æthelred's anger he was more fortunate than Ælfwald's sons, who were drowned on Æthelred's orders in 791. Osred, who returned from exile with a small army, encouraged by promises of support, was betrayed and killed by Æthelred's command on 14 September 792. Æthelred himself was killed on 18 April 796, perhaps at Corbridge, by conspirators led by the dux Ealdred.[6] Æthelred was followed as king by Osbald, whose antecedents are unknown; he was deposed after twenty-seven days and fled to the land of the Picts with a few supporters.

The King

Eardwulf became king on 14 May 796, and was conscrated by Eanbald I, Archbishop of York, and Bishops Æthelberht, Baldwulf, and Hygbald, in York on 26 May 796.

Eardwulf's reign, at the start of the Viking Age, saw a decline in the issue of coinage. The sceat disappears, to be replaced by the near-brass stycca under later kings.

Eardwulf was married before he became king as Alcuin reproached him for abandoning his wife for a concubine soon after his coronation. His repudiation of his wife will have strained relations with with Archbishop Eanbald II—Eanbald I died in the year of Eardwulf's coronation. Alcuin, while condemning secular oppression of the church, notes with surprise that the Archbishop Eanbald was accompanied by a large retinue, including soldiers, while travelling, and that he received and protected the king's enemies.

Eardwulf is also said to have been married to a daughter of the Emperor Charlemagne, but if this is correct she cannot have been a legitimate daughter.

Although Æthelred had been Eardwulf's enemy, Æthelred's killers proved to be equally hostile. In 798 a battle was fougt near Whalley between Eardwulf and a certain dux named Wada. Wada was put to flight. Among the dead was Alric, son of Heardberht, but whether he fought for Eardwulf or against him is not recorded. At about this time, Osbald appears to have planned on returning from his Pictish exile, but his death, as an abbot is recorded in 799.

In 799, an ealdorman named Moll was killed by Earnwulf's "urgent command". Moll's name has suggested that he was a kinsman of the late King Æthelred, whose father was Æthelwald Moll. The following year, Ealhmund, "the son of King Alhred, as some say", was killed by Eardwulf's men. Ealhmund was remembered at Derby, in the neighbouring kingdom of Mercia, as a saint.

King Cenwulf of Mercia may have supported the unfortunate Eahlmund. Eardwulf appears to have believed so as Symeon of Durham writes that in 801:

Eardulf, king of the Northumbrians, led an army against Kenwlf, king of Mercians, because he had given asylum to his enemies. He also, collecting an army, obtained very many auxiliaries from other provinces, having made a long expedition among them. At length, with the advice of the bishops and chiefs of the Angles on either side, they made peace through the kindness of the king of the Angles.

This settlement ended open warfare, but it may not have ended Cenwulf's efforts to replace Eardwulf. Eardwulf was deposed in 806, in unknown circumstances. Letters between Charlemagne and Pope Leo III suggest that Cenwulf had a hand in Eardwulf's removal. It appears that Eardwulf was replaced by King Ælfwald (II), about whom nothing is known.

Exile and return

Like many of predecessors, Eardwulf took to exile when he was deposed. Unlike kings with ties to Lindisfarne, who appear to have chosen exile among the Picts,[18], Eardwulf was linked to Ripon, and chose a southerly exile.

The next reports of Eardwulf are in Frankish sources:

In the meantime Eardwulf, the king of the Northumbrians from the island of Britain, had been driven from his throne and country. He came to the emperor while the latter was still at Nijmegen and, after saying why he had come, continued to Rome. On his return from Rome he was taken back to his kingdom by the envoys of the Roman pontiff and the Lord Emperor. At that time Leo III ruled the Roman church. As his envoy the deacon Aldulf, a Saxon from Britain was sent to Britain. Two abbots were dispatched with him by the emperor, the notary Hruotfrid and Nanthar of Saint-Omer.

The Frankish source is clear that Eardwulf was "returned to his kingdom",[20], but surviving Anglo-Saxon sources have no recollection of a second reign. Historians disagree with Ælfwald was replaced by Eardwulf, who would thus have reigned a second time from 808 to 811 or 812, or whether the reign of Eardwulf's son Eanred began in 808.

A recent suggestion is that Eardwulf may have entered the church on his return, and that the "Saint Hardulf" commemorated at Breedon-on-the-Hill may be him.

The death of Eardwulf is not recorded. Although he had faced considerable opposition, and had been driven into exile, he succeeded in founding a dynasty. His son Eanred ruled for thirty years, to be followed by his grandson Æthelred (II).

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