Anglian-Pictish War (685)

Anglian-Pictish War (685)

PRINCIPAL COMBATANTS: The Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of
Northumbria vs. the native Picts of Scotland

PRINCIPAL THEATER(S): Scotland

DECLARATION: None

MAJOR ISSUES AND OBJECTIVES: Anglo-Saxon England’s
hegemony over Scotland was the issue, with the Anglo-
Saxon Northumbrians wishing to reestablish that
hegemony and the native Picts fighting for their
independence.

OUTCOME: Northumbria was defeated, even losing territory
to the Picts, who remained independent of their southern
neighbors.

APPROXIMATE MAXIMUM NUMBER OF MEN UNDER ARMS:
Unknown

CASUALTIES: Unknown

TREATIES: None

After Anglo-Saxon tribes from barbarian Europe had vanquished
most of the native Briton and Roman-Briton peoples
of southern England in the sixth century, they fell to
fighting each other. The Anglo-Saxon kingdoms fought so
constantly that none ever established itself as a dominant
power, one that could fill the vacuum left by the vanquishing
of the Britons.
Beginning in 593 the Northumbrian kingdoms of Bernicia
and Deira were constantly at war, but they were so
evenly matched that they more or less canceled each other’s
influence, and neither ever managed to assert absolute
supremacy over the region. Instead, their internicene warfare
paved the way for another Anglo-Saxon kingdom,
Mercia, to rise to power in Northumbria, a position it
cemented in 641 at Maserfield, when the Mercians soundly
defeated all the Northumbrian clans.
Another disadvantage of the incessant Anglo-Saxon
clan warfare, which lasted through the next century until
the Viking invasions beginning in 789 (one of the bleaker
periods in all military history), was that it kept the Anglo-
Saxon kingdoms from developing any sense of joint
needs—for shared security against foreign invaders, for
example, or for alliances to achieve collective goals. All of
which helps explain England’s inability to conquer and subdue
Scotland, which, under the Briton had been considered
a vassal state of England. Instead, Anglo-Saxon kingdoms
would make various attempts to subdue the northern
reaches of the island, and each would fail by dint of its
overextension and the need to worry about its brother
Anglo-Saxons at its rear. Meanwhile, within Scotland itself
there was an ongoing struggle for local supremacy among
the native Picts, the northern Welsh of Strathclyde, and the
Scots (Irish) of Dal Riada.
The Picts were led by their king Brude (c. 670–695),
an able ruler and excellent warrior, who had carried on a
running battle with the Strathclyde Britons since 672. Now
he attracted the attention of the Northumbrian ruler
Egfrith (c. 671–685). In 685 the Northumbrians, who had
since managed to defeat the Mercians and regain hegemony
over their homeland, assembled a vast army under
Egfrith precisely for the purpose of bringing down the rambunctious
Brude and conquering his north-island domain.
Marching north through Lothian and crossing the Tay
River, Egfrith engaged the Pict forces under Brude at the
Battle of Dunnichen Moss. Brude smashed the English
forces and killed Egfrith. Egfrith’s death much weakened
Northumbria, which lost to the Picts all its territory
beyond the Firth of Forth. The Battle of Dunnichen Moss
thus ensured the independence of Scotland from Anglo-
Saxon England.

See also AETHELFRITH’S WARS; OSWALD’S WARS; SAXON
RAIDS: INVASION OF BRITAIN BY ANGLES, SAXONS, AND
JUTES; SAXON RAIDS: ARTHUR’S DEFENSIVE WARS; SAXON
RAIDS: SAXON CAMPAIGNS IN SOUTH CENTRAL BRITAIN.

Further reading: P. J. V. Fisher, The Anglo-Saxon Age, c.
400–1042: A History of England (London: Longman Group
United Kingdom, 1977); Frank M. Stenton, Anglo-Saxon
England (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press,
2001).