Uhtred the Bold in the context of "Waltheof of Bamburgh"

The Battle of Carham was fought between the English ruler of Bamburgh and the king of Scotland in alliance with the Cumbrians. The encounter took place in the 1010s, most likely 1018 (or perhaps 1016), at Carham on Tweed in what is now Northumberland, England. Uhtred, son of Waltheof of Bamburgh (or his brother Eadwulf Cudel), fought the combined forces of Malcolm II of Scotland and Owen the Bald, king of the Cumbrians (or Strathclyde). The result of the battle was a victory for the Scots and Cumbrians.

Earl of Northumbria or Ealdorman of Northumbria was a title in the late Anglo-Saxon, Anglo-Scandinavian and early Anglo-Norman period in England. The ealdordom was a successor of the Norse Kingdom of York. In the seventh century, the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of Bernicia and Deira were united in the kingdom of Northumbria, but this was destroyed by the Vikings in 867. Southern Northumbria, the former Deira, then became the Viking kingdom of York, while the rulers of Bamburgh commanded territory roughly equivalent to the northern kingdom of Bernicia. In 1006 Uhtred the Bold, ruler of Bamburgh, by command of Æthelred the Unready became ealdorman in the south, temporarily re-uniting much of the area of Northumbria into a single jurisdiction. Uhtred was murdered in 1016, and Cnut then appointed Eric of Hlathir ealdorman at York, but Uhtred's dynasty held onto Bamburgh. After the Norman Conquest the region was divided into multiple smaller baronies, one of which was the earldom of Northumberland, with others like the earldoms of York and numerous autonomous liberties such as the County Palatine of Durham and Liberty of Tynedale.

Eadwulf Cudel or Cutel (meaning cuttlefish) (died early 1020s), sometimes numbered Eadwulf III, was ruler of Bamburgh for some period in the early eleventh century. Following the successful takeover of York by the Vikings in 866/7, southern Northumbria became part of the Danelaw, but in the north English rulers held on from a base at Bamburgh. They were variously described as kings, earls, princes or high-reeves, and their independence from the kings of England and Scotland is uncertain. Uhtred the Bold and Eadwulf Cudel were sons of Waltheof, ruler of Bamburgh, who died in 1006. He was succeeded by Uhtred, who was appointed by Æthelred the Unready as earl in York, with responsibility for the whole of Northumbria. Uhtred was murdered in 1016, and king Cnut then appointed Erik, son of Hakon, earl at York, while Eadwulf succeeded at Bamburgh.

In 1018, the Northumbrians of Bamburgh were defeated by Malcolm II of Scotland in the Battle of Carham. In one twelfth-century Durham source, De obsessione Dunelmi, Ealdulf is described as "a very lazy and cowardly man", who ceded Lothian, the northern part of Bernicia, to the Scots—though the historicity of this claim is disputed, one of several twelfth-century English accounts that try to explain the 'loss' of Lothian to Scotland. Another twelfth-century tradition relates that Lothian had been under Scottish control since the time that King Edgar ceded it to Kenneth II of Scotland in the early 970s. Recently, it has been argued that Lothian remained part of the principality of Bamburgh until its dissolution around 1090, during the reign of Malcolm III.