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In the 7th century Northumbria was the dominant Anglo-Saxon kingdom, to be replaced by Mercia in the 8th century, and Wessex in the 10th and 11th centuries after the Danish/Viking invasions. I would like to explore ideas of how Northumbria could become the foundation kingdom of England instead of Wessex, and is now the dominant nation in what is now called Britain in OTL. Its capital city would be in the area of the historic kingdom of Northumbria - such as Durham or York or Edinburgh or *Newcastle-on-Tyne.
So how could the decline of Northumbria in the 8th century have been prevented? Here are some possible PODs:
King Ecgfrith of Northumbria is not decisively defeated at a battle near the River Trent in 679 by King Aethelred of Mercia.
In 685 Egcfrith does not invade Pictland and there is no battle of Dun Nechtain. Or if he does invade he wins that, or another battle, in which he crushes the Picts and is not killed. Here is the wikipedia entry for Ecgfrith: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecgfrith_of_Northumbria.
Aldfrith dies sometime after 705, or Osred I is not murdered in 816. He marries and fathers children. Here is his entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography: http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/20903.
How could the Northumbrian Renaissance or golden age keep flourishing after the mid to late 8th century?