Note 23 — Chapter II · THE FORMATION OF THE KINGDOM OF ENGLAND. 449–975.

The Chronicles, under the year 547, record the accession of Ida, and speak of him as the ancestor of the following line of Northumbrian Kings. But we are not told, as in the cases of Hengest, Ælle, and Cerdic, anything about his landing, and the phrase “Ida feng to rice” (cf. 519) implies that this was not the beginning of the settlement. I therefore cannot help suspecting that there is some truth in the legend preserved by Nennius (38), according to which settlers of the kindred of Hengest occupied Northumberland in the preceding century. William of Malmesbury (i. 7) follows the same account, with additional details, but he distinctly adds that no English chief in those parts took the title of King before Ida. See Comparative Politics, 419.