The Paladins of Edwin the Great

by Sir Clements R. Markham

Eanflaed, the daughter of Edwin by Ethelburga of Kent, arrived safely, and was married to King Oswy, the step–son of her aunt, the peerless Alca. She was then twenty–five years of age. The Queen was horrified when she heard of the murder of her cousin Oswin, and recoiled from her husband. He appears to have protested his innocence. Eventually a monastery was built at Gilling, where daily prayers were said for the soul of Oswin, and for forgiveness to the repentant Oswy. The first abbot was Trumhere, the younger son of Lilla and Bergliot, and brother of the murdered Trondhere. Born in 611, Trumhere was a cousin of the slaughtered King, his mother Bergliot having been a sister of Oswin's father. He was brought up in the same monastery with Chad, the future saint, but not under his direction, as Bede says, for they were contemporaries. Trumhere went from Gilling to be the first bishop of the Mercians, with his see at Repton. Resigning his bishopric into the hands of King Wulfhere, who appointed Jaruman to succeed him, Trumhere retired to a monastery. When a very old man, he was the instructor of the historian Bede, and told him the anecdote of St. Chad, remarked upon by Jeremy Bentham in his Life of Christ, touching his habit of praying whenever there was a storm, and the reason he gave for the practice. St. Chad succeeded Jaruman as bishop of the Mercians, and having transferred the see from Repton to Lichfield, he died there in 674. Trumhere survived him for sixteen years.

A few years after Oswy's marriage, his kingdom was exposed to the desolating incursions of the bloodthirsty King Penda of Mercia. He did all in his power to appease the old man. His son Egfrith was even given up as a hostage to the Mercian Queen Cynthryth. He offered immense gifts if Penda would return home and cease to devastate the country. But Penda refused them, swearing to destroy Oswy and all his race. Oswy became desperate. He said, "If the Pagan will not accept our gifts, let us offer them to Him that will, the Lord our God." He vowed that if he was victorious he would dedicate his youngest daughter, Elflaed, to the service of God.

On 15th November 655, the two armies met on the banks of a stream near Leeds, which was much swollen by the rains. The place was called Winwidfield. Penda's army was vastly superior in numbers to the Northumbrians, and consisted of all the power of the Mercians, besides a contingent of East Anglians led by their king, Ethelhard. The dethroned son of Oswald, Etheldwald, the grandson of Alca, was a spectator, but he did not engage in the battle against his countrymen. Oswy had with him his (illegitimate?) son Alchred. After a well–contested battle, the Mercians were forced back into the swollen water of the flood, where there was much loss of life. Both Penda and Ethelhard were among the dead. There was a great slaughter, and Oswy gained a complete victory. The unfortunate son of Oswald is not again mentioned, and his fate is unknown.

Oswy became very powerful. He was acknowledged as Bretwalda in succession to Oswald, and for some years he personally administered Mercia. Afterwards Peada, the son of Penda, having become a Christian, was allowed to succeed, and was followed by his brothers Wulfhere (659) and Ethelred (675), who married Oswy's daughter Osfrith. Oswy must have been a man of considerable ability. He died on 15th February 676, leaving a son, Ealhfrith, by a first wife, and four children by Eanflaed. These were Egfrith, his successor; Elfwin, cut off in his youth, which was full of promise; Osfrith, the Mercian Queen; and Elflaed the nun—the four grandchildren of Edwin the Great.

The daughters of Braga now claim our attention. Her younger sister Nanna, or Mary Audr, as Godric loved to call her, died at Driffield soon after their flight thither, and was buried by the side of her brothers. Like her namesake, the wife of Balder, she could not survive the death of her lord. Braga lived on. At the time of Hereric's flight she had a strange dream. She fancied that she was seeking for him most carefully, and could find no sign of him anywhere. After having used all her industry to seek him, she found a most precious jewel under her garment, which, whilst she was looking at it very attentively, cast such a light as spread itself throughout all Britain. It was thought that this dream was fulfilled in the life of her daughter St. Hilda. Soon after her daughters were grown up, Braga died, and was buried at Stillingfleet with her sister and brothers.

Braga's eldest daughter, Hereswith, married Ethelhard, King of East Anglia, who was slain fighting for Penda at Winwidfield. Her son Aldwulf, who succeeded, eventually became a monk. Hereswith herself retired to the monastery of Chelles near Paris. Hilda wished to follow her sister, but Bishop Aidan recalled her and induced her to lead a monastic life on some land near the banks of the river Wear. She was made Abbess of Heruteu (Hartlepool), and, after some years, was removed thence to be Abbess of Streaneshalch (Whitby), where she was an example of good life and a person of singular piety and grace. She also had considerable influence in church and state; and the famous synod, with Oswy presiding, when Wilfrid confuted Colman in the Easter controversy, was held in her abbey. She was a great sufferer during the last year of her life, and died at Whitby on 17th November 680, aged sixty–six years. She had built another monastery at Hackness, and at the moment of her death one of the Hackness nuns named Bega (St. Bees) saw her in a vision being carried up to heaven by angels. When the monks came next morning with the news, the Hackness nuns told them that they had known it for some hours. Thus died St. Hilda, the child of Hereric and Braga.

Elflaed, the grandchild of King Edwin, was entrusted to her cousin Hilda when she was at Hartlepool, and removed with her to Whitby. On Hilda's death, Elflaed became abbess, and, on the death of Oswy, her mother Eanflaed came to pass the last years of her life with her child. They translated King Edwin's body from Aldby to Whitby, and there they both died and were buried. Oswy was also buried at Whitby. The death of Elflaed took place in 714.

Both the children of Alca were canonised—St. Oswald and St. Ebba. The sweet little Ebba was brought up by Bergliot at Hemingborough, and early took to a religious life. She was abbess of the monastery of Coludi, now called Coldingham, in Berwickshire. Bede tells us that Ebba died before 679, when the Abbey of Coldingham was burnt down.

Egfrith, the grandson of King Edwin, succeeded his father Oswy in 670, at the age of eighteen, and married Etheldrida, daughter of Anna, King of East Anglia, who preferred a monastic life, and bore him no children. Eventually she obtained her husband's permission to take the veil at Coludi, where St. Ebba, Egfrith's cousin, was abbess, whence she removed to Ely. In 679 this king and his brother–in–law of Mercia had an unfortunate quarrel, and there was a battle on the banks of the Trent, in which young Elfwin, Egfrith's brother, was killed. He was a youth of great promise aged eighteen, and his loss was deplored by both sides. This made it easy for Archbishop Theodore to offer his mediation, and the combatants were appeased. Egfrith was restless and ambitious. In 684 he sent an army to invade Ireland; and the following year he himself led a force to ravage the country of the Picts, much against the advice of Bishop Cuthbert and his other councillors. He was led into an ambush at Dunnichen, on the coast of Forfarshire, and slain on the 20th of May 685, aged forty years, and having reigned fifteen.