Aethelric was the fourth known king of the Kingdom of Bernicia

Bernicia

Bernicia was an Anglo-Saxon kingdom established by Anglian settlers of the 6th century in what is now southeastern Scotland and North East England....

 which he ruled from 568 to 572. Aethelric was the father of Æthelfrith

Æthelfrith of Northumbria

Æthelfrith was King of Bernicia from c. 593 until c. 616; he was also, beginning c. 604, the first Bernician king to also rule Deira, to the south of Bernicia. Since Deira and Bernicia were the two basic components of what would later be defined as Northumbria, Æthelfrith can be considered, in...

, who was the first monarch to rule both Bernicia and Deira, the two constituent parts of what came to be considered Northumbria

Northumbria

Northumbria was a medieval kingdom of the Angles, in what is now Northern England and South-East Scotland, becoming subsequently an earldom in a united Anglo-Saxon kingdom of England. The name reflects the approximate southern limit to the kingdom's territory, the Humber Estuary.Northumbria was...

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Aethelric was one of the sons born to Ida of Bernicia

Ida of Bernicia

Ida is the first known king of the Anglian kingdom of Bernicia, which he ruled from around 547 until his death in 559. Little is known of his life or reign, but he was regarded as the founder of a line from which later Anglo-Saxon kings in this part of northern England and southern Scotland...

, founder of the kingdom. Nothing is known for certain of Aethelric's life and reign. The earliest authorities differ widely on the order and the regnal years of the kings between the death of Ida and the beginning of Æthelfrith's rule in 592/593.