⚔ Battlefields of Britain

Battle of the Trent 679

Battle of the Trent: Northumbria.rise.600.700
Image: myself, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Marker: recorded battle location (no official boundary).

Key facts

Date (year)679Wikidata P585 point in time
Century7th centuryderived
PeriodEarly medieval, Anglo-Saxon & Vikingderived
CountryEnglandderived

About the battle

The Battle of the Trent was fought at an unspecified site near the River Trent within the Kingdom of Lindsey (today part of England), in 679. The battle was fought between the Northumbrian army of King Ecgfrith and the Mercian army of King Æthelred. The Mercians were victorious, ending Northumbrian domination of the area. Lindsey would from then on become a client state of Mercia.

Bede notes in Ecclesiastical History of the English People that the 18-year-old subking, Ælfwine of Deira, was killed in the battle, and that this almost led to further conflict between the two kingdoms, needing the intervention of Theodore, the Archbishop of Canterbury.

In his account of the battle, Bede recounts the tale of a Northumbrian thegn called Imm or Imma, who may have been the founder of the settlement of Immingham. Imma was captured by the Mercians and, proving troublesome, was sold into slavery to a Frisian merchant who, when his identity was discovered, then ransomed him to one of the kings of Kent.

Visiting the battlefield

Location

  • Recorded location (Wikidata; may be approximate): 53.5333, -1.6761

Battlefields are often on private farmland: please keep to public rights of way and respect landowners.

Directions (Google Maps) OpenStreetMap

Text adapted from the Wikipedia article Battle of the Trent (revision 1376030668), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section; condensed by selecting paragraphs; citations removed. No text added.

Battle location from Wikidata (CC0).

Nearby battlefields

Browse more: battles in England · Early medieval, Anglo-Saxon & Viking · 7th century battles

Further reading