Alhfrith or Ealhfrith was a son of King Oswiu of Northumbria

Oswiu of Northumbria

Oswiu , also known as Oswy or Oswig , was a King of Bernicia. His father, Æthelfrith of Bernicia, was killed in battle, fighting against Rædwald, King of the East Angles and Edwin of Deira at the River Idle in 616...

 and Rieinmelth of Rheged

Rheged

Rheged is described in poetic sources as one of the kingdoms of the Hen Ogledd , the Brythonic-speaking region of what is now northern England and southern Scotland, during the Early Middle Ages...

.

In around 655 Alhfrith was appointed by his father as sub-king of Deira, the southern part of the Northumbrian kingdom. He replaced his cousin Æthelwold

Æthelwold of Deira

Œthelwald was a King of Deira . He was the son of King Oswald of Northumbria, who was killed at the Battle of Maserfield in 642....

, who had supported Oswiu's enemy Penda of Mercia

Penda of Mercia

Penda was a 7th-century King of Mercia, the Anglo-Saxon kingdom in what is today the English Midlands. A pagan at a time when Christianity was taking hold in many of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, Penda took over the Severn Valley in 628 following the Battle of Cirencester before participating in the...

 in the campaign leading up to the Battle of the Winwaed

Battle of the Winwaed

The Battle of the Winwaed was fought on 15 November 655 , between King Penda of Mercia and Oswiu of Bernicia, ending in the Mercians' defeat and Penda's death.-History:Although the battle is said to be the most important between the early northern and southern divisions of...

. Alhfrith was married to Penda's daughter Cyneburh; Cyneburh's brother Peada

Peada of Mercia

Peada , a son of Penda, was briefly King of southern Mercia after his father's death in November 655 until his own death in the spring of the next year.In about the year 653 Peada was made king of the Middle Angles by his father...

 was doubly Alhfrith's brother-in-law as he later married Alhfrith's sister Ealhflæd.

At the Synod of Whitby

Synod of Whitby

The Synod of Whitby was a seventh century Northumbriansynod where King Oswiu of Northumbria ruled that his kingdom would calculate Easter and observe the monastic tonsure according to the customs of Rome, rather than the customs practised by Iona and its satellite institutions...

 in 664, Alhfrith was the chief supporter of Wilfrid

Wilfrid

Wilfrid was an English bishop and saint. Born a Northumbrian noble, he entered religious life as a teenager and studied at Lindisfarne, at Canterbury, in Gaul, and at Rome; he returned to Northumbria in about 660, and became the abbot of a newly founded monastery at Ripon...

. Bede

Bede

Bede , also referred to as Saint Bede or the Venerable Bede , was a monk at the Northumbrian monastery of Saint Peter at Monkwearmouth, today part of Sunderland, England, and of its companion monastery, Saint Paul's, in modern Jarrow , both in the Kingdom of Northumbria...

, in the Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum

Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum

The Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum is a work in Latin by Bede on the history of the Christian Churches in England, and of England generally; its main focus is on the conflict between Roman and Celtic Christianity.It is considered to be one of the most important original references on...

(Book III, chapter 14), states that Alhfrith attacked his father. No further details are known. Bede's Lives of the Abbots states that Alhfrith asked his father for permission to accompany Benedict Biscop

Benedict Biscop

Benedict Biscop , also known as Biscop Baducing, was an Anglo-Saxon abbot and founder of Monkwearmouth-Jarrow Priory and was considered a saint after his death.-Early career:...

 on a pilgrimage to Rome

Rome

Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

, but the dating of this request is unclear. With this, Alhfrith disappears from the record.

While generally presumed to be the son of Aldfrith

Aldfrith of Northumbria

Aldfrith sometimes Aldfrid, Aldfridus , or Flann Fína mac Ossu , was king of Northumbria from 685 until his death. He is described by early writers such as Bede, Alcuin and Stephen of Ripon as a man of great learning, and some of his works, as well as letters written to him, survive...

, a half-brother of Alhfrith, the possibility is admitted that Osric

Osric of Northumbria

Osric was king of Northumbria from the death of Coenred in 718 until his death on the 9th of May, 729. Symeon of Durham calls him a son of Aldfrith of Northumbria, which would make him a brother, or perhaps a half-brother, of Osred...

may have been a son of Alhfrith and Cyneburh.

External links

• Bede's Ecclesiastical History and the Continuation of Bede (pdf), at CCEL, translated by A.M. Sellar.
• Bede's Lives of the Abbots of Wearmouth and Jarrow at Internet Medieval Sourcebook, translated by J.A. Giles.