* 1.1XV. CHAP.
i.2. The King of the Northumbers over∣comes the King of the Scotts.
* 1.21. THE year following, which was the six hundred and third of our Lords In∣carnation, Ethelfrid King of the Northumbers overcame Edan King of the Scotts.* 1.3 This Ethel∣frid, saith Beda, was a most potent King, and wonderfully thirsty after glory. He had wasted the Brittains more then any of the Saxon Princes, and had made many of their Provinces tributary. Whereupon Edan King of the Scots inhabiting Brittany being mov'd by the great progresse of his Victories, came against him with a mighty and well appointed army, but was overcome and forced to fly back with few attendants: For in a place called Degsasten, or The Stone Degsa, celebrated by that battell, his whole army in a manner was destroyed. Yet in the same combat Theobald Bro∣ther of Ethelfrid with that part of the army lead by him, was slain. And from that time till the dayes of S. Beda himself never durst any King of the Scotts enter Brittany against the English Na∣tion.
* 1.42. The said King Aidan, as Fordon the Scottish Chronicler testifies, after that discom∣fiture did so afflict himself with greif that two years after he dyed at Kentyre. After whose death Kennet Ker son of Conal seysed on the Crown, but within lesse then a years space dying, Euge∣nius Buydwel Son of Aeidan succeeded in the Kingdom. Which King Eugenius, saith he, infe∣sted the Regions of the Saxons, and sometimes of the Picts with furious irruptions. But in this clause he manifestly contradicts S. Beda fore∣cited,* 1.5 who likewise elsewhere expressly af∣firms, That the Scotts inhabiting Brittany con∣tented themselves with their own confines and attempted nothing either openly or privily against the English Nation. But from the Scotts we will passe to the Brittains, and their contentions with the now Christian-Saxons about the Church and Ecclesiasticall Rites.