King Edgar's council at Chester

What happened at Chester has been heavily obscured by the embellishments and political environment of later, twelfth century chroniclers, however, it is claimed that several kings came and pledged their allegiance to Edgar, including Kenneth II of Scotland and Máel Coluim I of Strathclyde and five from Wales.

[1]: 157–158  The chroniclers wrote that these kings pledged their faith that they would be Edgar's liege-men on sea and land.

Later chroniclers made the kings into eight, all plying the oars of Edgar's state barge on the River Dee.

Chroniclers wrote that after Kenneth had reportedly done homage, Edgar rewarded Kenneth by granting him Laudian (thought to be Lothian),[4] thereby changing the frontier between Northumbria and Alba (this was the nascent Anglo-Scottish border) in Alba's favour.

The barge is thought to have been rowed from Edgar's residence up the Dee to St John's Church on the opposite bank.

A Victorian representation of Edgar being rowed on the River Dee .
Black and white illustration of a king being rowed down a river in a rowboat by eight other kings
An early twentieth-century depiction of Edgar being rowed down the River Dee by eight kings. [ 5 ] According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle , Edgar met six kings at Chester. By the twelfth century, chroniclers alleged that eight kings rowed Edgar down the river in an act of submission. [ 6 ]