791/2. Æthelred of Northumbria orders Ealdorman Eardwulf killed, but he survives
Ealdorman Eardwulf would emerge in 796 as king of Northumbria. These earlier events come down to us only in the account of Simeon of Durham, who notes that in Æthelred's second year Eardwulf was captured and brought to Ripon, and ordered to be killed outside the gate of the monastery. The brethren carried his body to the church, and placed it outside in a tent, and after midnight he was found in the church, alive. The details are not clear, but it seems that Eardwulf survived an attempted execution, in circumstances which were seen as miraculous. These are probably "the perils from which the divine mercy freed you" which Alcuin notes in a letter written to Eardwulf after 796 (EHD 199).