Battle of Carham

Date	1018
Location	River Tweed
Result	Scottish victory

Belligerents

Kingdom of England

Kingdom of Scotland Kingdom of Strathclyde

Commanders and leaders

Uhtred, son of Waldef

Máel Coluim mac Cináeda Owain the Bald

The Battle of Carham (c. 1018) (also referred to as the Battle of Coldstream) was fought between the Kingdom of Scotland and the Northumbrians at Carham on Tweed. 'Uhtred, son of Waldef, earl of the Northumbrians, fought the combined forces of Máel Coluim (II) mac Cináeda (Malcolm son of Cyneth, king of Scots) and Owain the Bald (King of Strathclyde). Their combined forces defeated Earl Uhtred’s forces determining the eastern border of Scotland at the River Tweed.

Written Records of the Battle

Sources for the battle are scarce. Those that do mention the battle often include it in a survey of other events. The English sources only briefly discuss the battle. Three of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle manuscripts (C, D, and E) record the events leading to the conflict:

"Then [Atheling Edmund and Earl Uhtred] led an army into Staffordshire and into Shropshire and to Chester, and they ravaged on their side and Cnut on his side. He then went out through Buckinghamshire into Bedfordshire, from there to Huntingdonshire, and so into Northamptionshire, long the fen to Stamford, and then into Lincolnshire; then from there to Nottinghamshire and so into Northumbria towards York."

Mael Coluin and Owain grouped together "near Caddonlea (Selkirkshire) […] where the Wedale road from Alba met the Tweeddale road from Strathclyde, lay at the northern edge of Ettick Forest (roughly corresponding with to Selkirkshirein extent) which formed a march (an underdeveloped and sparsely populated border zone) between Cumbria and Northumbria." Uhtred’s forces intercepted them before they crossed Cheviot. This interception meant that he did not have enough time to gather enough troops. Another source, De obsessione Dunelmi (“On the Siege of Durham”), places the battle under the 1018 annul listing Uhtred as the Northumbrian army.

The Dating Controversy

Symeon of Durham (12th Century), using dependable Northumbrian materials, records in Historia Dunelmensis Ecclesie places the battle in 1018 (“without mention of Uhtred”). Frank Stenton proposed and some scholars maintain that astronomical events referred to in accounts of the battle actually indicate 1016. Symeon’s record of a comet’s visibility during the battle correlates with astronomical evidence from August 1018. Stenton also contended that the death of Earl Uhtred in 1016 voids the argument for 1018. Three versions of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (C, D, and E) reference the death of Uhtred in the 1016 annul:

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