Northumberland

Northumberland is a county in England directly south of Scotland across the River Tweed. The county today is the northernmost of England.

History

Following their defeat at the Battle of Gaine in 967, brothers Kenneth II and Prince Malcolm, and cousins Maol Chalvim II and Kenneth III took refuge at Northumberland Keep. ("The Pledge")

In 1996, while the the Stone of Destiny was being transported over the Coldstream Bridge, Coldstone and Coldfire battled Coldsteel and Coyote 5.0 above the English and Scottish borders. ("Rock of Ages")

Real World Background

Northumberland (in Old English, norð hẏmbra land) found its name in its geographic location, north of the Humber, an estuary that flows into the North Sea. From the 7th Century AD until the 10th Century it was the Kingdom of Northumbria that extended as far south as the Humber to as north as Edinburgh. By the end of the 8th Century, it was part of four major kingdoms in England (the other three East Anglia, Mercia, and Wessex).

It was later conquered by the Danish in 867 AD. In 1016, during Canute of Denmark and Edmund Ironside's fight for the English crown, a peace was negotiated that gave Edmund control of Wessex and London while Canute took Mercia and Northumbria. By 1066, William the Conqueror's Norman forces seized control of the region.

In 1237, England's Henry III and Scotland's Alexander II signed the Treaty of York, in which Scotland renounced claims to the county of Northumberland, which defined the borders between the two kingdoms that have (largely) remained unchanged into the modern day.

See Also

• Northumbria at Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
• Northumberland at Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia