The defeat and death of King Ecgfrith of Northumbria at Nechtansmere, or Dunnichen Moss, in 685 is recorded by Bede, Historia Ecclesiastica, Book IV c.26, who also records that after the battle many English settlers were killed or enslaved, or fled from Pictish territory. The interpretation of their fate as a forerunner of the massacres associated with the Sicilian Vespers of 1282 seems to have been Harrison's own gloss on these events.