The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle informs us that four years previously (794), "Ethelred, king of the Northumbrians, was slain by his own people, on the 13th before the Kalends of May." This Ethelred seems to have been a very unfortunate or a very tyrannical ruler, even for those barbarous times, for we find, on the same authority, he, in company with Herbert, "slew three high reves, on the 11th before the Kalends of April," 778, and that afterwards "Alfwold obtained the kingdom, and drove Ethelred out of the country; and he (Alfwold) reigned ten years." This same Alfwold was evidently regarded as a patriot and not as an usurper, for the Chronicle tells us that he "was slain by Siga, on the 8th before the Kalends of October; and a heavenly light was frequently seen at the place where he was slain; and he was buried at Hexham within the church." He was succeeded by his nephew, Osred, who, the Chronicle says, afterwards "was betrayed and driven from the kingdom; and Ethelred, the son of Ethelwald, again obtained the government." Two years later, from the same authority, we learn that "Osred, who had been king of the Northhumbrians, having come home from his exile, was seized and slain on the 18th before the Kalends of October," (792). These facts throw much light on the social and political state of the country at the period, and demonstrate that Ethelred's murder was by no means an exceptional occurrence. Indeed, the slaying of kings by their own people appears to have been the rule rather than the exception amongst our ancestors, especially in Northumbria, about this period. Sharon Turner, in his "History of the Anglo-Saxons," referring to the internecine conflicts which took place in the North of England for a lengthened period, and especially about this time, says--"Of all the Anglo-Saxon Governments the kingdom of Northumbria had been always the most perturbed. Usurper murdering usurper is the prevailing incident. A crowd of ghastly monarchs pass swiftly along the page of history as we gaze, and scarcely was the sword of the assassin sheathed before it was drawn against its master, and he was carried to the sepulchre which he had just closed upon another. In this manner, during the last century and a half, no fewer than seventeen sceptered chiefs hurled each other from their joyless thrones, and the deaths of the greatest number were accompanied by hecatombs of their friends."