The Battle of Theawleas was a battle fought between the army of King Guthred of Northymbre and the Anglo-Saxon rebel army of Bertwald at the village of Theawleas (Thorpe Thewles) in present-day County Durham in 878 AD.
In the aftermath of the Battle of Edington in 878 AD, a lull in the hostilities between Dane and Saxon allowed King Guthred to build his strength in Northumbria. Guthred aimed to combine Viking might and English resolve to make Northumbria the greatest kingdom in the British Isles, and, while one of his armies defended his capital of York, King Guthred led an army in the north with the objective of suppressing Anglo-Saxon unrest. Bertwald assembled a small, 300-strong rebel force near Alclyt (Bishop Auckland), and King Guthred proceeded to lead his 563-strong army (consisting mostly of Anglian ceorls, and partly of Norse thegns) to crush the rebels. When the two armies met, the rebel scout cavalry unwisely charged the spear-wielding Norse thegns, while the Northumbrian Saxons encircled and massacred the rebel army. Bertwald and his companions fought to the death, so Ethelward of Woodham led the 19 surviving rebels in an attempted escape before being chased down and massacred.
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