The Historia gives the abbot central place in the election of Guthred as king of Northumbria by the Viking army based in Yorkshire, and that subsequently Eadred purchased land from him, using it to endow the bishopric of St Cuthbert.
The Historia chapter 13 claims that, prompted by a nighttime visit by St Cuthbert, Eadred crossed the river Tyne to the army of Danes based in Yorkshire, and instructed them to proclaim a boy named Guthred son of Harthacnut as king [of Northumbria], by placing a golden armlet on his right arm at a hill called Oswigesdune.
[2] It continues by relating that Abbot Eadred purchased from King Guthred the vills of Monk Hesleden, Horden Hall, Yoden, Castle Eden, Hulam, Hutton Henry, Twilingatun, and gave them over to the house of St Cuthbert.
[4] At this point in the narrative, Eadred disappears, but it is related that the body was moved to Chester-le-Street, around the time of the death of Alfred the Great (died 899) and Bishop Earwulf.
Woolf argued that Eadred's prominence in the narrative and a property list from the Historia Regum combine to suggest that Carlisle was the location of a united Bernician bishopric for some years, having previously been at Norham.