MELROSE ABBEY, LOWLANDS / BORDERS
In the sixth century AD the Anglo-British kingdoms of Bernicia and Deira were united to form the core of Northumbria. In the Seventh Century aggressive kings spread the Northumbrian empire north east as far as Dunothar Castle, near Aberdeen, and to the south west to Chester on the Welsh border. Northumbria simply indicates the area North of the Humber. The Firth of Forth (Abhainn Dhubh [Black River] in Scottish Gaelic) is the estuary or firth of Scotland's River Forth, where it flows into the North Sea between Fife to the north, and West Lothian, the City of Edinburgh, and East Lothian to the south. The river is tidal as far inland as Stirling.
The name Colne is of Celtic origin. It is currently thought to have been founded around the 1st to 4th centuries BC by the Brigantes - of the Colne Valley and Yorkshire's Westriding. Roman accounts of the Pictish Wars as well as later accounts, it appears that the Pictish lands were essentially north of the Forth-Clyde line, north of the Antonine Wall. Roman pacification, and Celtic and Saxon migration from the south would have erased any Pictish claims to people or lands south of the wall. King Oswald re-introduced Christianity to the Kingdom, but by appointing St Aidan, an Irish monk from the Scottish island of Iona to convert his people. Roman Christianity, which had been established in the south of what is now England, under the first international papal mission of Saint Augustine to Canterbury and since the Synod of Whitby, in northeast England, Bernicia covered lands north of the Tees, whilst Deira corresponded roughly to modern-day Yorkshire, East Riding, and the Humber.
The first Anglian king of whom we have any record is Ida, who is said to have obtained the throne about 547. Following the disastrous Battle of Hatfield Chase on October 12, 633, in which Edwin was defeated and killed by Cadwallon ap Cadfan of Gwynedd and Penda of Mercia, Northumbria again was divided into Bernicia and Deira. Bernicia was then briefly ruled by Eanfrith, son of Aethelfrith, but after about a yeare he went to Cadwallon to sue for peace and was killed. Eanfrith's brother Oswald then raised an army and finally defeated Cadwallon at the Battle of Heavenfield in 634; after this victory, he reunited York.
Melrose receives it's first mention in history when in 631 AD King Oswald on Northumbria invited Aidan of Iona (Saint to be) to set up a monastery at Lindisfarne with a daughter-house at Mailros, now Old Melrose. The first prior was Boisel, after whom the village of St Boswell is named.
The Dalriadic Scots established a footing in the islands towards the beginning of the 6th century, their success was short-lived, and the Picts regained power and kept it until dispossessed by the Norsemen in the 9th century. The final union of Picts and Scottish kingdom of Dalraida completed by the marriage of the Scots/Irish king Kenneth mac Alpin to a Pictish princess, only a yeare after Danish fleets attack and conquer Norwegian settlement at Dublin. The ministries of Ninian, Patrick, Columba, and Augustine speeded up the process of conversion to Christianity among the Celtic and Anglo-Saxon peoples. Ireland remained independent of both Rome and the Anglo-Saxons throughout this period. Southern Ireland accepts Roman order of Christianity.
Lindisfarne and Mailros were missionary houses to convert the pagan Angles and Britons of Northumbria to Christianity, so Mailros and it's surrounding district must have been a major centre of population at that time. St Cuthbert, greatest holy man of Northumbria, a shepherd-boy in nearby Lauderdale, was novice, then monk then prior of Mailros Abbey. The confidant of Northumbrian kings, his relics are finally at rest in Durham Cathedral. St Cuthberts name is preserved locally in St Cuthberts Chapel of which nothing now remains. Very recently, a long distance public walk of great interest was named St Cuthberts Way, stretching from Melrose to Lindsisfarne. During the Northumbrian empire, a great dynastic battle of three days duration was fought in 761 AD at Eldunum near Mailros. Again a large and important population is implied. But this battle heralded the end of Northumbria. Bernicia became part of Northumbria, and by 954 was overrun by the Danish kingdom of York.
Eirik Bloodaxe, wild and exiled son of King Harald Harfargar (Hairfair) of Norway, comes to Northumbria and takes the kingship and is said to have entered Kvenland but Olaf Siggtrygsson and Eadred, brother and successor to Edmund (d. 946), fight to regain control of Northumbria. Shortly afterwards Bernicia came under a unified England, then in 1018 Malcolm II brought the region as far as the River Tweed under Scottish rule.