Æthelstan has by late June or early July reached Chester-le-Street, where he makes generous gifts to the tomb of St. Cuthbert, including a stole and maniple (ecclesiastical garments) originally commissioned by his stepmother Ælfflæd as a gift to bishop Frithestan of Winchester.
The invasion is launched by land and sea.
According to the twelfth century chronicler Simeon of Durham, …