governed Bernicia, having for his capital the proud rock-fortress of Bibbanburgh (so named from his queen Bibba), the modern Bamborough. In the following century Bernicia was combined with Deira, its southern neighbour (corresponding to Yorkshire) to form the powerful kingdom of Northumbria, extending, as Brigantia had done, from the Humber to the Forth. For the next three or four hundred years the story of the Border was little more than a wild record of lawlessness and bloodshed. It had grown to be a kind of happy hunting-ground for every hostile tribe within fighting distance, and for some even who were drawn from long distances, like the Danes, the latest of the invading hordes. But there is nothing of importance to narrate at this period. From a monarchy, Northumbria fell to the level of an Earldom in 954, and in 1018, the Scots, consolidated to some extent under Malcolm II., crushed the Angles of Northumbria in a great victory at Carham-on-Tweed (near Coldstream), of which the result was the cession to Scotland of the district known as Lothian--the land lying between the Tweed and Forth. Thus at the dawn of the 11th century we have the Tweed constituting the virtual boundary between the two countries. Cumberland, to be sure, was for a time Scots territory, but this the intrepid Rufus wrested back in 1092. So that by the close of that century the Border line appears to have taken the quite natural course of delimitation--the Tweed, the Cheviots, and the Solway, though it was not till as late as 1222 that a commission of both countries was appointed to adjust the final demarcation. THE CHRISTIANIZING OF THE BORDER