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Brittonic kings pressing an offensive against the Northumbri- You’ve got this glowing rampart in the landscape with smoke
ans on the island of Metcaud, known today as Lindisfarne, off pouring out of it for weeks, basically saying, ‘You are never
northeastern England. coming back up here again.’”
“Urien blockaded [the Northumbrians] for three days and Urien Rheged’s old foes, the Northumbrians, who are
three nights on the island of Metcaud,” the history reads. “But known to have pushed west across Britain and taken over Gal-
during this campaign, Urien was assassinated on the instigation loway around this time, are likely to have been the perpetrators
of Morcant [one of the other Brittonic kings] from jealousy of the destruction. “When Northumbria moved westwards, it
because his military skill and generalship surpassed that of was bloody, it was battles,” says Petts. “This is a world of big
all the other kings.” The Historia Brittonum also notes that guys butting heads and taking over land.” The Mote of Mark,
a granddaughter of Urien was later married to King Oswiu a fort located some 15 miles east of Trusty’s Hill, was vitrified
of Northumbria (r. 642–670). In sum, the written sources around the same time, and a number of other nearby forts
appear to portray Urien as the leader of a powerful kingdom are believed to have been vitrified as well, suggesting that the
in northern Britain that rapidly grew from a base in southwest destruction was part of a campaign to systematically erase the
Scotland or northwest England. area’s former rulers from the countryside. “There are historical
“We are able to say Trusty’s Hill was probably a royal center,” records of the Northumbrians conquering a neighboring king
says Bowles. “And the likeliest kingdom to have been centered in northern England and firing castles by flame and sword,”
there is the kingdom of Rheged, which has never really been says Bowles, “but in terms of Galloway and Rheged, there is
pinned down on the map before.” It is impossible to prove that nothing that specifically says that happened. Archaeology is
Trusty’s Hill was the stronghold of Rheged, but David Petts, effectively putting the meat on the bones of history.”
an archaeologist at the University of Durham who is an expert Despite the great lengths the attackers went to to destroy

Early in the 7th century, a fire at the fort at Trusty’s Hill burned for so long and at such high temperatures that it melted, or
vitrified, the fort’s stone ramparts. Fires such as these had been set at enclaves throughout the region around the same time.

on the Northumbrians, notes that the evidence shows it was the fort at Trusty’s Hill, people continued to visit the site
clearly an important settlement. “Even if it’s not the capital of well into the seventh and possibly even the eighth century, as
Rheged,” he says, “it’s certainly one of the most powerful sites indicated by radiocarbon dating of fill from the rock-cut basin.
in Rheged, or whatever you choose to call this particular area.” This suggests, Bowles notes, that Britons may have exercised
The manner in which the fort at Trusty’s Hill was destroyed continued resistance to Northumbrian rule in secretive ways.
provides further evidence of its importance. Sometime early Indeed, this use may have continued much longer, as a hoard
in the seventh century, the fort was vitrified—subjected to of sixteenth-century silver coins was found nearby when the
a fire that burned so hot and so long that its stone ramparts Pictish carvings were first described in 1794. Most likely the
melted. According to Bowles, this could not have occurred by basin and carvings served a votive or ceremonial purpose that
accident and was most likely the action of a conquering force. drew visitors long after the kingdoms that fought over the site
“This is arson on a big scale,” he says. “To get the timbers in had been lost to memory. n
the ramparts to burn hot enough to melt the rock around
them, the fire had to be tended for weeks or possibly months. Daniel Weiss is senior editor at Archaeology.

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