ons, defeated them at Cirencester, and in =628= brought the
territory of the Hwiccas under Mercian sway. On the other hand, East
Anglia accepted Eadwine's supremacy and Christianity. Penda called to
his aid Caedwalla, the king of Gwynnedd, the Snowdonian region of
Wales. That he should have done so shows how completely AEthelfrith's
victory at Chester, by cutting the Kymric realm in two, had put an end
to all fears that the Kymry could ever make head against England as a
whole. The alliance was too strong for Eadwine, and in =633=, at the
battle of Heathfield--the modern Hatfield, in Yorkshire--the great
king was slain and his army routed.

16. =Oswald's Victory at Heavenfield.=--Penda was content to split up
Bernicia and Deira into separate kingdoms, and to join East Anglia to
his subject states. Caedwalla had all the wrongs of his race to avenge.
He remained in North-humberland burning and destroying till =635=,
when Oswald, who was a son of AEthelfrith and of Eadwine's sister, and
therefore united the claims of the rival families, gathered the men of
Bernicia round him, overthrew Caedwalla at Heavenfield, near the Roman
Wall, and was gratefully accepted as king by the whole of
North-humberland.

17. =Oswald and Aidan.=--In the days of Eadwine, Oswald, as the heir
of the rival house of Bernicia, had passed his youth in exile, and had
been converted to Christianity in the monastery of Hii, the island now
known as Iona. The monastery had been founded by Columba, an Irish
Scot. Christianity had been introduced into Ireland by Patrick early
in the fifth century. Ireland was a land of constant and cruel war
between its tribes, and all who wished to be Christians in more than
name withdrew themselves into monasteries, where they lived an even
stricter and more ascetic life than the monks did in other parts of
Western Europe. Bishops were retained in the monasteries to ordain
priests, but they were entirely powerless. Columba's monastery at Hii
sent its missionaries abroad, and brought Picts as well as Scots under
the influence of Christianity. Oswald now requested its abbot, the
successor of Columba, to send a missionary to preach the faith to the
men of North-humberland in the place of Paulinus, who had fled when
Eadwine was slain. The first who was sent came back reporting that the
people were too stubborn to be converted. "Was it their stubbornness
or your harshness?" asked the monk Aidan. "Did you forget to give them