Bede
(St.)
The man on the Lord Augustine, is said to have foretold
with threats that, if they would not have peace with their brethren, they would have war, from their enemies and
if they would not preach the way of life to the nation of the English, they would undergo the vengeance of death
at their hands
This came about came about by the dispensation of the divine judgement, in every point just as he had foretold
.
For afterwards, that most powerful king of the English of whom we have spoken Aethelfrith, collected a mighty army
and made a very great slaughter of that heretical nation at the city of legions, which is called by the nation
of the English Legacaestir but by the Britons more correctly Carlegion .
And when he was about to give battle, and he saw their priests, who were come together to offer their prayers to God for the soldiers who fought in the battle, standing apart in a safer place, he inquired who they were, and so to what end they had gathered there .
Most of them were of the monastery of Bangor, in which it is said there was a great number of monks, that through the monastery was divided into seven parts with superiors set over each, none of those parts had fewer than 300 men, who all lived from the labour of their hands . Many of these, having observed a fast of three days, assembled with others at the aforesaid battle to pray, and they had a defender Brocmail by name, who was to protect them from the barbarians swords whilst t they were intent on prayer .
When King Aethelfrith understood the reason of their coming, he said " If then they cry to their God against us, in truth , though they do not bear arms they fight against us, seeing that they assail us with curses " . And so he commanded them to be attacked first and then destroyed the rest of the impious army, not without much loss to his own army .
They say that about 1,200 of those who came to pray were destroyed in that fight and that only 50 escaped by flight. Brocmail turned his back with his men at the first approach of the enemy, and left those whom he ought to have defended, unarmed and exposed to the attacking swords . And thus was fulfilled the prediction of the holy Bishop Augustine, although he himself had a long-time before been taken up into heavenly kingdom, that the heretics should feel vengeance of temporal death also, because they had spurned the offer of eternal salvation .
