Battle of Heavenfield - c634AD
Battle of Otterburn - 1388
Battle of Flodden - 1513
The Battle of Heavenfield - c.635AD
Today there are few clues to the historical significance of the battle that took place between Northumbrians and an invading Welsh army at Heavenfield.
Just a wooden cross, put up in the 1930s, marks the spot which is near Chollerford, north of Hexham and in the shadow of Hadrian's Wall.
Indeed, many of the details of the conflict have been lost in the mists of time. Even its precise date is a matter of debate among historians. They speculate on 633, 634 or 635.
But this battle was vital for the future of not just Northumberland, but the entire country.
And the Northumbrians would have been seen as the underdogs. They were outnumbered by a particularly vicious invading army.
The Northumbrian king Oswald had to summon an army at short notice after returning from a 17 year exile in Western Scotland.
The legend goes that the night before the battle took place, a worried Oswald was visited by St Columba who told him that he would win.
And Oswald pulled a master stroke - using the abandoned but still standing Hadrian's Wall as a defensive base. The wall in those days still stood up to 10 feet wide and 20 feet tall.
The Welsh began the battle by attacking from the East but were unable to outflank Oswald's troops.
Faced with defeat, the Welsh turned and fled, and their leader - called Cadwallon or Cadwalla depending on which text you read - was executed.
The great Christian scholar Bede regarded the battle as key to the survival of Christianity in the ancient Kingdom of Northumbria and therefore Britain as a whole.
Oswald used the victory to reunify the Kingdom of Northumbria - which had been split into two rival kingdoms - and invited monks from Iona to set up a monastery at the Holy Island of Lindisfarne. From there, the new religion of Christianity gradually took hold across the entire country.
The Battle of Otterburn - 1318
Otterburn is a battle that reads like something out of an historical novel with a stellar cast and several plot twists and turns.
The year is 1388 and Harry Hotspur, son of the Earl of Northumberland, is pursuing Scots leader James Douglas through the Northumberland countryside after the latter launches a series of daring border raids.
Douglas retreats to Otterburn, where he attacks the town's tower and sets up camp for the night.
As dusk gathers, Hotspur's army reaches the town and rushes in a surprise attack towards the unprepared Scots troops.
Douglas is stunned and rushes into battle without even a faceplate. As the sun sets and the battle rages it looks as if the Scots are in deep trouble.
But somehow the Scots regroup and fight on in the gathering darkness. Fighting continues in the moonlight - the rival sides pausing when clouds block the light.
The darkness means the English cannot use their archers and are forced to rely on grim and violent hand-to-hand combat.
By morning the Scots have gained the upper hand and Hotspur's English army is on the run. Some 1,800 of them are captured or killed. Hotspur escapes with his life but his reputation is ruined.
Morning brings one more tragic twist. Douglas, the architect of this famous victory, is found to have been killed in the battle.
Today the battle site looks much as it did more than 600 years ago. A plain stretch of grassland with scrubby woodland to the sides that masked flank attacks.
A cross and information boards mark the spot, just a mile from the centre of Otterburn, where a dead man's army won a famous victory.
The Battle of Flodden - 1513
Today all you can see is quiet and wildlife-rich farm and moorland, but in 1513 Flodden was the site of a bloody and fierce battle between the English and Scots.
The site, eight miles west of Wooler, was where a French-funded Scottish Army led by King James IV met the might of the English army with explosive and historically far-reaching results.
It is the most important battle to be fought on Northumbrian soil, and resulted in a decisive victory for Henry VIII and his English army who completely outfought their Scottish opponents.
For the Scots, Flodden was nothing short of a disaster. At the end of that drizzly September day more than 500 years ago, 10,000 of them lay dead - that's ten times more than the estimated fatalities suffered by the English.
The Scottish dead included twelve earls, fifteen lords, many clan chiefs an archbishop and above all King James himself.
As well as a national tragedy, Flodden has a wider historical significance. It is described as Britain's last true Medieval battle and it was the first battle in the British Isles where artillery played a major part - ushering in a new era of warfare.
The battlefield looks as pretty well as it did in 1513. A monument, erected in 1910, is easily reached from Branxton village by following the road past St Paul's Church.
There is a small car park and a clearly marked and signposted battlefield trail with interpretive boards which make it easy to visualise the conflict.
Thanks to David Simpson for supplying source material for this section.
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