The parish church of Winwick is dedicated to St. Oswald, and Mr. Baines says—"Little more than half a mile to the north, on the road to Golborne and Wigan, is an ancient well, which has been known from time immemorial by the name of 'St. Oswald's Well.'" This well is still in existence, and a certain veneration at the present time hovers about it in the minds of others than the superstitious peasantry. On the upper portion of the south wall of the church is an inscription in Latin, purporting to be a "renovation" of a previous one, by a person named Sclater, in the year 1530, in the curacy of Henry Johnson. On a recent visit, this inscription, as well as other portions of the edifice, I found had undergone further renovation. Gough translates the first three lines as follows:—
This place of old did Oswald greatly love:
Who the Northumbers ruled, now reigns above,
And from Marcelde did to Heaven remove.
Mr. Beamont gives the translation of the inscription as follows:—
This place of yore did Oswald greatly love,
Northumbria's King, but now a saint above,
Who in Marcelde's field did fighting fall,
Hear us, oh blest one, when here to thee we call.
(A line over the porch obliterated.)
In fifteen hundred and just three times ten,
Sclater restored and built this wall again,
And Henry Johnson here was curate then.
This, and its repetition by Hollingworth in his "Mancuniensis," appears to have alone constituted "the highest authority" relied upon by Edward Baines for his statement that Winwick parish was the favourite residence of King Oswald. The inscription does not, as some have assumed, state the church is built in, on, or near Marcelde. It merely asserts that Oswald died at a place so named, and which may have been Winwick, the site of the church dedicated to St. Oswald, or any other locality, Marcelde being evidently a corruption and a rythmical contraction of the undoubted Anglo-Saxon name of the scene of Oswald's defeat and death.
Objection has been taken to the word "Marcelde," as a bad Latin substitute for "Maserfeld." But the goodness or badness of mediæval Latin substitutes for English names is of no consequence to the question at issue, as the reference to the place of Oswald's death is undeniable. It is but an apt illustration of the strange transformations local nomenclature sometimes has undergone in transmission from past centuries to the present time.
Geoffrey of Monmouth and the Welsh Bruts curiously confound the incidents attendant upon this and a previous battle, in which Oswald was engaged and was victorious. Geoffrey says that Cadwalla, a Brit-Welsh king, one of the heroes of Lywrich Hen's poetic effusions, hearing of Oswald's victory over Penda(?) at "Heavenfield," "being inflamed with rage, assembled his army and went in pursuit of the holy king, Oswald; and in a battle which he had with him, at a place called Burne, broke in upon him and killed him."
Geoffrey here, as noted by Sharon Turner, shows his irrational partiality to the fame of the British chieftain, and his disregard of historical truth when it did not minister to his prejudices or presumed patriotism. Cadwalla was slain in the battle with Oswald at "Heavenfield," in 635, seven years previously to the saintly Northumbrian warrior's defeat and death; and, consequently, the British hero was, in accordance with ordinary mortal notions, somewhat incapacitated for the performance of the after-deeds of valour, ascribed to him by his panegyrist—without miraculous intervention—which, however, Geoffrey does not even suggest, notwithstanding its presumed frequency on other momentous occasions.[14]
Referring to Oswald's death, Bede says—"It is also given out and become a proverb, 'that he ended his life in prayer;' for when he was beset with weapons and enemies, he perceived he must immediately be killed, and prayed to God for the souls of his army, hence it is proverbially said, 'Lord have mercy on their souls, said Oswald, as he fell on the ground.' His bones, therefore, were translated to the monastery which we mentioned (Bardsea), and buried therein; but the king that slew him commanded his head, hands, and arms to be cut off from the body, and set upon stakes. But the successor in the throne, Oswy, coming thither the next year with his army, took them down, and buried his head in the church of Lindisfarne, and the hands and arms in the royal city" (Bamborough).