[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"$f1qynet4cxaj6f":3,"$f8kw1wa56tc25":12},{"slug":4,"title":5,"subtitle":6,"excerpt":7,"coverUrl":8,"publishedAt":9,"contentHtml":10,"substackUrl":11},"on-this-day-the-death-of-king-edwin","On this day: the death of King Edwin","12 October 633: A king killed, a queen’s escape, and a bishop who never came home.","Okay, remember how last week we talked about St Paulinus dying at Rochester? And I asked the question, why was he there? Today we are going to answer that question! We’ll get there in a bit! Let’s sta","https:\u002F\u002Fsubstackcdn.com\u002Fimage\u002Ffetch\u002F$s_!iqCN!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\u002Fhttps%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F3c6c0df8-66e5-4ec7-95b2-33178b76f733_960x1250.jpeg","2026-10-12T14:16:10.000Z","\u003Ch2>To start with, \u003Ca href=\"https:\u002F\u002Fclaude.ai\u002Fartifact\u002F5ymCu43NM6zPwqHSQodJSH\">here is a link\u003C\u002Fa> to a family tree, to help keep these names straight!\u003C\u002Fh2>\u003Cp>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Okay, remember how last week we talked about St Paulinus dying at Rochester? And I asked the question, why was he there? Today we are going to answer that question! We’ll get there in a bit!\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Let’s start with the biggest thing. On this day, 12 October 633, King Edwin of Northumbria lay dead on the battlefield.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cfigure>\u003Ca href=\"https:\u002F\u002Fsubstackcdn.com\u002Fimage\u002Ffetch\u002F$s_!iqCN!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\u002Fhttps%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F3c6c0df8-66e5-4ec7-95b2-33178b76f733_960x1250.jpeg\">\u003Cimg src=\"https:\u002F\u002Fsubstackcdn.com\u002Fimage\u002Ffetch\u002F$s_!iqCN!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep\u002Fhttps%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F3c6c0df8-66e5-4ec7-95b2-33178b76f733_960x1250.jpeg\" alt=\"\" \u002F>\u003C\u002Fa>\u003C\u002Ffigure>\u003Ch2>\u003Cstrong>The Battle of Hatfield Chase\u003C\u002Fstrong>\u003C\u002Fh2>\u003Cp>You may think that that king’s name sounds familiar. We mentioned him last week… he was the one who married Æthelburh, who brought Bishop Paulinus to Northumbria. Edwin was the king who St Paulinus baptized, and afterwards St Paulinus baptized Northumbrians in droves.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Edwin was on a famous list of the even more famous Bede. This list was of special kings Bede named that the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle later called \u003Cem>bretwaldas\u003C\u002Fem> which were pretty much the baddest kings in what would become England, kings who ruled over most everyone. Edwin wasn’t called a \u003Cem>bretwalda\u003C\u002Fem> in his lifetime, but that doesn’t mean there wasn’t a target on his back. He was a super powerful guy, so of course other rulers wanted him gone.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Two of these rulers were Cadwallon of Gwynedd (Bede calls him Caedwalla) and Penda of Mercia, both super famous and powerful rulers of this era. They decided to team up against Edwin. What was unique about this alliance was that Cadwallon was a Christian and Penda was a pagan, so this was like trying to mix oil and water. So, they war with Edwin. At the Battle of Hatfield Chase, which is usually placed near modern day Hatfield in South Yorkshire, Edwin was killed. Then, Penda and Cadwallon went on a burning spree in Northumbria. Bede says: “…one of the chiefs, by whom it was carried on, was a pagan, and the other a barbarian, more cruel than a pagan; for Penda, with all the nation of the Mercians, was an idolater, and a stranger to the name of Christ; but Caedwalla, though he professed and called himself a Christian, was so barbarous in his disposition and manner of living, that he did not even spare women and innocent children…”\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Now Bede wasn’t just saying this because Cadwallon was warring against and killing other Christians. I think he mainly said this because he believed that the Christian Britons seriously hated the Christian Anglo-Saxons. That is a long story, but in short, when the missionary Augustine came to Britain, he at one point went to talk to the British bishops. He told them Rome sent him to be bishop over all of them, which they didn’t really jive with; he talked down to them from the start because of their differing beliefs about things like the date of Easter, method of baptism, and preaching to the Anglo-Saxons. Plus, as the story goes, the British bishops went to get advice about what Augustine was saying from a local hermit… the hermit said to show up late… If Augustine rose from his chair to greet them, he was a humble man and they should listen to him. However, Augustine stayed sitting, which was super offensive. The British bishops probably realized that if Augustine is treating them with such disdain now, just wait until after they agree he can be over them. So, religiously, the Britons and the Anglo-Saxons did not mix, according to Bede. That really made Bede angry, for the Britons refused to share the Word with the pagan Anglo-Saxons, which in his beliefs condemned the Anglo-Saxons to Hell. Also, though, the Anglo-Saxons took a huge majority of Britain from the Britons, so maybe their animosity was earned?\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Ch2>\u003Cstrong>After the battle\u003C\u002Fstrong>\u003C\u002Fh2>\u003Cp>So, back to Northumbria. Cadwallon was out burning everything. No one was safe, but arguably the most unsafe was the old royal family. Æthelburh and her son (Wuscfrea), daughter (Eanflæd), and step-grandson (Yffi) had to flee with Bishop Paulinus under the protection of one of Edwin’s thegns, Bassus, who Bede calls “a most valiant thegn”. They sailed to Kent to Æthelburh’s brother, King Eadbald. Then, Northumbria split (again) into Deira and Bernicia. Deira went to Edwin’s cousin, Osric, who was at Edwin’s court and baptized by Paulinus. Eanfrith was the son of Edwin’s old enemy, Æthelfrith, and came to rule Bernicia. Not only did they take over, they apostatized, making them even more of a threat to the Christian queen and her bishop. I guess their hearts really weren’t in it. However, even in Kent, the old royal family still weren’t very safe.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>During the year Bede says was “hateful to all good men,” both Osric and Eanfrith were killed by Cadwallon. Oswald, Edwin’s nephew, defeated Cadwallon in 634. He took the thrones of Deira and Bernicia and reunited Northumbria. He was then the most powerful ruler in Britain… and there were a couple of little boys down south with a pretty good claim to the Northumbrian throne. Æthelburh knew enough about Anglo-Saxon politics to know that even under her brother’s protection her family was not safe. If Oswald came looking for the boys, even Eadbald didn’t have much say. Also, it’s not outlandish to see that her son could rival her nephews later for the Kentish throne. So, she sent Wuscfrea and Yffi to the Frankish kingdom of Gaul to be with Dagobert I, a friend and distant cousin. They would be out of reach of any Anglo-Saxon kings there… unfortunately, both died as infants… Bede didn’t say how. And Eanflæd? Probably since she was a girl and couldn’t take the throne, she got to stay in Kent with her mother. Seems like a bad idea to me… what about when she has sons?\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Ch2>\u003Cstrong>So why was St Paulinus in Rochester?\u003C\u002Fstrong>\u003C\u002Fh2>\u003Cp>So Bishop Paulinus was in Kent with Æthelburh. Rochester’s bishop, Romanus, had drowned while on an errand to Pope Honorius, so the church there no longer had a bishop. The Archbishop of Canterbury, also named Honorius, and King Eadbald of Kent asked Bishop Paulinus to take the bishopric of Rochester. He stayed at Rochester until he died in 644, which is where we found him last week. He was actually meant to become the very first Archbishop of York… it had been the plan from the very beginning that there be two archbishoprics in Britain, but when things got hairy in the north that plan was shelved for another hundred years. St Paulinus had received the pallium, which is the special vestment sent by the Pope to make someone an archbishop. Pope Honorius sent it in June 634, eight months after King Edwin died; it came with a letter to King Edwin, urging him to keep the faith. Pope Honorius hadn’t gotten the news that the king was already dead. The thing is that Paulinus could only wear the pallium in his own province… and what would have been his province had a king that didn’t support him anymore. He was an archbishop with nowhere to be archbishop of. So, he kept the pallium and left it at Rochester when he died.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Ch2>\u003Cstrong>But what about Edwin?\u003C\u002Fstrong>\u003C\u002Fh2>\u003Cp>Well, Edwin had died at the Battle of Hatfield Chase. His head was sent to York and laid in St Gregory’s chapel, inside the church that Edwin had begun… that’s the one that was a precursor to York Minster. His body (for the time being) was left on the battlefield, buried where he fell.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Decades later, according to the anonymous \u003Cem>Life of Pope Gregory the Great\u003C\u002Fem> (written by a Whitby monk), Trimma (a priest in a monastery) had three dreams, each more insistent than the last. In the final one, the man in the dream beat Trimma with a whip and said, “Have I not twice shown you what you must do and you have taken no notice?” (trans. Bertram Colgrave). Trimma was to go dig up Edwin’s bones and have them taken to Whitby. This time he went; a local farmer showed him the spot, and on his second dig he found the bones, presumably headless. By this point, Eanflæd, Edwin’s daughter, was an elderly abbess at Whitby, alongside her own daughter, Ælfflæd. At Whitby, the bones were buried in St Peter’s church, near the altar of St Gregory. Since his head lay in St Gregory’s chapel in York, both parts of him ended up with the Pope whose mission converted him. Whitby seemed to hope that Edwin would become a saint, but that’s a story for another day.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Ch2>\u003Cstrong>The girl from the boat\u003C\u002Fstrong>\u003C\u002Fh2>\u003Cp>Remember when I asked that question before, what would happen if Eanflæd had sons? Well, later on, Oswald’s brother Oswiu probably thought that same thing. He married Eanflæd around 643, after Oswald was killed. Their sons were heirs of both Deira and Bernicia.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Ch2>Is anyone else really confused with all these Os- names? I made a tree to help with this story \u003Ca href=\"https:\u002F\u002Fclaude.ai\u002Fartifact\u002F5ymCu43NM6zPwqHSQodJSH\">HERE\u003C\u002Fa>.\u003C\u002Fh2>\u003Cp>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Ch3>\u003Cstrong>Further listening: The British History Podcast, ep. 111, “Edwin: What Goes Around Comes Around”. This is where I first heard this story, which was the beginning of my love for this era! Also, Jamie is just fantastic. I highly recommend you give the BHP a listen! Either \u003Ca href=\"https:\u002F\u002Fwww.thebritishhistorypodcast.com\u002Fchapter-three-the-warriors-of-god\u002F\">here\u003C\u002Fa> or wherever you listen to your podcasts!\u003C\u002Fstrong>\u003C\u002Fh3>\u003Cp>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Ch3>\u003Cstrong>Thanks so much for reading! I'd love to hear what you think, so tell me in the comments: would you have sent the boys away? What about Eanflæd? And if you're enjoying these stories, subscribe to Meg Loves History so you don't miss the next one. 💛\u003C\u002Fstrong>\u003C\u002Fh3>\u003Cp>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Ca href=\"https:\u002F\u002Fmegloveshistory.substack.com\u002Fp\u002Fon-this-day-the-death-of-king-edwin\u002Fcomments\">\u003Cspan>Leave a comment\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fa>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Ca href=\"https:\u002F\u002Fmegloveshistory.substack.com\u002Fsubscribe?\">\u003Cspan>Subscribe now\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fa>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003Ca href=\"https:\u002F\u002Fmegloveshistory.substack.com\u002Fp\u002Fon-this-day-the-death-of-king-edwin?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share&action=share\">\u003Cspan>Share\u003C\u002Fspan>\u003C\u002Fa>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cp>Sources:\u003C\u002Fp>\u003Cul>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>Bede, \u003Cem>Ecclesiastical History of the English People\u003C\u002Fem>, trans. A. M. Sellar (1907): I.22; II.2, 5, 17–18, 20; III.1, 24\u003C\u002Fp>\u003C\u002Fli>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>\u003Cem>The Earliest Life of Gregory the Great, by an Anonymous Monk of Whitby\u003C\u002Fem>, ed. and trans. Bertram Colgrave (1968), chs. 18–19\u003C\u002Fp>\u003C\u002Fli>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>\u003Cem>Anglo-Saxon Chronicle\u003C\u002Fem>, entry for 829 (the word \u003Cem>bretwalda\u003C\u002Fem>)\u003C\u002Fp>\u003C\u002Fli>\u003Cli>\u003Cp>\u003Cstrong>Image:\u003C\u002Fstrong> \u003Cem>Saint King Edwin of Northumbria\u003C\u002Fem>, stained glass, St Mary's Church, Sledmere, East Riding of Yorkshire. Photo by DaveWebster14 (8 August 2009), licensed under CC BY 2.0 (\u003Ca href=\"https:\u002F\u002Fcreativecommons.org\u002Flicenses\u002Fby\u002F2.0\u002F\">https:\u002F\u002Fcreativecommons.org\u002Flicenses\u002Fby\u002F2.0\u002F\u003C\u002Fa>), via Wikimedia Commons.\u003C\u002Fp>\u003C\u002Fli>\u003C\u002Ful>\u003Cp>\u003C\u002Fp>","https:\u002F\u002Fmegloveshistory.substack.com\u002Fp\u002Fon-this-day-the-death-of-king-edwin",{"persons":13,"places":14,"events":15,"institutions":16,"groups":17,"titles":18,"houses":19,"sources":20,"artifacts":21,"librarySections":22},2709,7446,1661,1781,1942,129,107,98,3,6537]