Constantine IV and his successors worked hard to stem the barbarian tide, but the Angles, Saxons and Jutes scented blood and pressed home their advantage with force and venom. For they were up against flesh and blood now, not demi-gods like Arthur or inspired High Kings à la Uther and Ambrosius.
The British struggled to find a shared, collective vision. The magic that had previously propelled them had dissipated into the steel-grey, post-Arthurian skies. The Grail, that focal point of communal adoration, was gone. Glastonbury continued to function, but without its Priest and King. They had vanished. No-one knew where. All that was left were disjointed stories of strange encounters in liminal places – ruined basilicas, peatland bogs, wineshop cellars – with men who shone with a power and grace that seemed to emanate from another, better world. Potent, charged words would be spoken, blessings given and promises made. Yet the facts on the ground remained unchanged – steady Germanic advance and constant British diminution. It was hard in such a climate to believe that the Priest and King were real or ever had been real. Sightings dwindled down to nought and the high history of the Grail became another piece of irrelevant folklore alongside tales of Constantine’s tunnels and the bronze horse of Brutus. To seek these things seemed like the utmost frivolity in a hard-edged age of withdrawal and defeat.
The incoming tribes set up their own independent kingdoms – Essex for the East Saxons, Sussex for the South Saxons, Wessex for the West Saxons, Kent for the Jutes, East Anglia for the Eastern Angles, Mercia for the Middle Angles, and Northumbria for the Northern Angles. Borders stayed fluid for a long time and the British, penned back into Wales now, would occasionally launch destructive counter thrusts into the heart of the new territories. The tribes would fight among themselves as well, vying for living space, dominance and prestige. Glastonbury’s influence shrank and most of the fine buildings and centres of learning established by Arthur and Ambrosius were destroyed. Christianity withered on the vine and the Anglo-Saxon gods – effective but limited deities such as Woden, Thor and Frig – increasingly set the tone.
It was a harsh, unpleasant time, but Heaven’s radiance – the spiritual Sun that moves the stars and planets – still found ways to pierce the gloom. In Ireland, which had known neither Roman nor Saxon, men and women banded together in monasteries and convents, often in wild, exposed locations, to devote themselves to prayer, preserve what was left of European culture, and to step forth onto pagan soil and set hearts and minds ablaze for Christ. One such was St. Columba, who sailed to the island of Iona, off the Western Scottish coast. He established a community there – a base from where he preached the Logos to the Picts and Scots and as far south as the Angles of Northumbria.
St. Oswald, born in 604, seven years after Columba’s death, was himself a man of Northumbria, the son of King Aethelfrith, a pagan, who was deposed and killed in 614. The new king, Edwin, was a reverent man who began the construction of York Minster, but there could be no place in Northumbria now for the former royal family, so Oswald and his brothers sought sanctuary on Iona, far from danger, with the community founded by Columba.
Oswald’s father had been brutal towards Christians in his time, once ordering the execution of 1200 monks who had prayed for an enemy to defeat him. Yet these men showed no animosity whatsoever towards the young prince and his siblings. Their lives of service and devotion and the light of God that lit up their faces made a huge impression on Oswald and it was while he was in Iona that he became a Christian.
Edwin was slain in 632 by the heathen warlord Penda of Mercia. Two years later Oswald marched south to reclaim the kingdom and stopped at Heavenfield, near Hexham, where he erected a huge wooden cross to show the world who and what he was fighting for. The night before the battle, Columba came to him in a vision, blessed him, and stretched out his cloak over Oswald’s sleeping soldiers. So emphatic was Oswald’s victory the next day that Penda was forced to run from the field entirely on his own.
Oswald brought peace and stability and a fresh breeze of hope to the North. He invited a monk from Iona called Aidan to work alongside him and for eight glorious years they revitalised the realm, restoring old churches, raising up new ones, and pouring their hearts and souls into care for the poor. One Easter Day, for example, Oswald and Aidan were preparing for dinner when they saw a crowd of beggars sitting forlornly at the gates. So Oswald gave his food to them instead and broke the silver dish it was served on in pieces and donated that to the hungry too. He had the gift of unceasing prayer and would arise each morning while it was dark and sit in silent contemplation for hours before beginning the day’s affairs. Penda took his revenge, however, in 642 and Oswald’s reign was cut brutally short. But miracles of healing took place straightaway at the spot where he died and it soon became clear that the good works he performed on Earth were continuing now from Heaven.
Savagery engulfed the kingdom again but in 655 Oswald’s brother Oswy disposed of Penda once and for all in battle near Leeds. Unity and purpose were restored and the example of Northumbria started to impact neighbouring kingdoms as Christianity began to thrive again. The renaissance blossomed into a golden age. English monasteries, English choirs, English scholars and churchmen – such as the Venerable Bede and Alcuin of York – became famous across Europe. The Lindisfarne Gospel, with its illuminated capitals and covers of gold, was one of the marvels of the age. The land was peaceful. There was no external enemy. All was set fair.