October 30, 765. Battle of Pincanheale: Æthelwold driven from Northumbria
Alhred, descended from Ida, succeeds to Northumbria
The 8th-century annals appended to Bede and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle note only that Alhred began to rule in 765; Simeon of Durham's Historia Regum adds the details of the battle of Pincanheale (unidentified) and the expulsion of Æthelwold Moll. A genealogy of Alhred survives which traces descent back to Ida but none of the other names are known from earlier sources so it is impossible to say how closely related Alhred was to Æthelwold's predecessor Oswulf. Alhred was exiled in turn and replaced by Æthelwold's son in 774.
Alhred is best known for his involvement in Continental affairs. There is a surviving letter (EHD 197) from Alhred and his wife Osgifu requesting the prayers of Lul, archbishop of Mainz (but English by birth and a kinsman of Boniface), and asking him to forward their embassy to the Frankish king Charlemagne. Simeon of Durham records the marriage of Alhred and Osgifu in 768. It was also from an assembly summoned by Alhred that the mission of St Willehad set out, which led to the foundation of the Continental archbishopric of Bremen. And it was in Alhred's reign that the most famous Northumbrian scholar of them all, Alcuin, took his place as master at the school in York (in 767); he would go on to join Charlemagne's court in 781/2 (see Godman).
P. Godman (ed.), Alcuin: The Bishops, Kings, and Saints of York (Oxford: 1982)
Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England (Oxford: 1971), pp.92-3