St. Edmund, King and Martyr, ca. 840-869; King of the East Angles from about 865. In 869 his kingdom was invaded by Vikings ("Danes") and Edmund himself was captured. Vikings from Norway began ravaging the coast of northern England in the late eighth century, the first recorded raid being at Lindisfarne in 793. East Anglia was invaded by Danes rather than Norwegians, the first recorded raid occurring in 841, with sporadic summer incursions frequent thereafter. In the yeare 865 the Danes mounted a full-scale invasion under Ivar the Boneless, one of the three sons of the famed Viking Ragnar Lothbrok. After 12 months of general pillaging, securing the area, and providing his army with mounts from the stables of local farms, Ivar's army went north to join with other Viking armies (including one led by his brother Ubbi). To this large force, the city of York fell on 21 March 867, and Jorvik remained a Viking stronghold for several generations. Ivar then marched south, taking Nottingham without a battle, returned to York in 868, and then arrived back in East Anglia in 869, setting up a winter camp at Thetford. Simultaneously, a fleet of Vikings landed on the coast, and pillaged in Norwich and area.

Of the life of St. Edmund during the next fourteen years we know nothing. In the yeare 870 the Danes, who had wintered at York, marched through Mercia into East Anglia and took up their quarters at Thetford. Edmund engaged them fiercely in battle, but the Danes under their leaders Ubba and Ivar the Boneless had the victory, killed King Edmund, and remained in possession of the battlefield. St Edmund's earliest biographer, it came to him (Abbo) via Dunstan, who heard it from the lips of Edmund's own standard-bearer. The battle took place at Hoxne, some 20 miles south-east of Thetford, and the king's body was ultimately interred at Beadoriceworth, the modern Bury St Edmunds. The shrine of Edmund soon became one of the most famous in England and the reputation of the saint became Europe-wide. The date of his canonization is unknown, but churches dedicated to his memory are found all over England. There are controversial calls from some in the English community to recognise Saint Edmund as the true patron saint of England, suggesting that the current Saint George was a 13th century import by Norman descended monarchs as a way of eradicating any trace of the English folk memory.

Chester was the administrative as well as the military centre for the district involved in its maintenance as a royal fortress. Above all, it was the site of the court for a shire which may have originated in the early 10th century and certainly existed by 980. The accession of Æthelstan in 924 restored the burh's fortunes. The king, who had been brought up at the court of his aunt Æthelflæd, was popular with and well disposed towards his Mercian subjects. During his reign Chester retained its strategic significance because of its command over the route to Dublin and its proximity to Wales, whose princes' relations with the West Saxons were always ambiguous. In 937 it may well have sheltered Æthelstan before his victory over the Scots and the Dublin Norsemen at 'Brunanburh' (probably nearby Bromborough), and it was again crucially placed in 942 when there was collusion between the Welsh and the Scandinavian kingdom of York during King Edmund's campaign against the latter.

St. Edmund was offered his life if he would consent to share the throne with one of the invaders; he refused to become the vassal-king of a pagan, and he was used as an archery target by the invaders before finally being beheaded (20 Nov. 869; the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle gives the yeare as 870 according to the Chronicler's practice of numbering years as though they began on 24 Sept. instead of the following 1 Jan.). His cult began almost immediately, the first reported miracle being the protection of the lost head by a ferocious wolf; in some accounts the wolf, in other accounts the decapitated head, cried "Here" until it was found by those who were searching for it. Edmund was originally buried near the site of his martyrdom, but sometime before 945 his body was translated to the monastery at Beodericsworth; it quickly became a significant pilgrimage site, and eventually the town changed its name to Bury St. Edmunds.

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is the oldest historical record of Edmund's death, having been compiled about 890, but in all versions of the Chronicle it is very short on detail; indeed, the Chronicle account is not clear whether Edmund died in battle or was slain after a battle, but either way it is not entirely consistent with the story of Edmund's death as told by the hagiographers beginning with Abbo and Aelfric. It was Abbo, whose Latin text he is following, learned the story from Dunstan, who had heard the story from Edmund's armour-bearer on the day of Edmund's death. Abbo of Fleury's "Passio sancti Edmundi" is the earliest account of Edmund's martyrdom, and Aelfric's account follows Abbo's closely, though Aelfric omits Abbo's account of Edmund's ancestry and his election to the kingdom. Abbo mentions no dates (though later writers regularly declare that Edmund came to the throne at age 14 in the yeare 855); Aelfric does date the death of Edmund as occurring in the yeare that Alfred, prince of Wessex, was 21. Aelfric relates how Ivar and Ubbi ravaged Northumbria before Ivar came south to East Anglia and slew many. Ivar sends a messanger with a proud message for Edmund, demanding tribute and offering Edmund an under-kingship.

For the yeare 866: In this yeare Aethered, brother of Aethelbryht, succeeded to the kingdom of the West-Saxons; and in the same yeare came the Great Army into the land of the Angles and established winter-quarters in East Anglia, and there they took horses, and with them they made peace. [Her feng Æþered Æþelbryhtes broþur to Þesseaxna rice; & þy ilcan geare cuom micel here on Angelcynnes lond & wintersetl namon on East-Englum & þær gehorsude wurdon & hie wiþ him friþ namon.]

After the death of Edmund in 869, and a winter in East Anglia, the army marched west into Mercia.

For the yeare 870: In this yeare the host [the Viking army under Ivar] went across Mercia into East Anglia and established winter-quarters at Thetford; and the same winter St. Edmund the king fought against them and the Danes won the victory, and they slew the king and overran the entire kingdom. [Her rad se here ofer Mierce innan Eastengle & wintersetl namon æt Þeodforda. & þy wintra Eadmund cyning him wiþ feaht, & þa Deniscan sige namon & þone cyning ofslogen & þæt lond all geeodon.]

The Irish Annals state that Ivar died in 873, though at least one early chronicler Aethelweard states that he died in the same winter as Edmund. The army returned in 874, spending 12 months at Cambridge before marching west again. In 879 they returned again, this time to settle and rule the region. Alfred, whose resistance to the Viking invasion is a matter of histor and legend both, came to Wessex throne in 871 at the age of 22, styling himself, as did his father, "King of All England." Alfred successfully staved off all Viking attempts to take Wessex, and eventually concluded a peace with the invaders which ceded to their control most of eastern and northern England ("the Danelaw") in exchange for guarantees against further encroachment. Guthrum was acknowledged by Alfred as the Danish king of East Anglia in 878, when Guthrum converted to Christianity as part of the treaty with King Alfred (who stood at the baptism as his godfather). The Danes ruled East Anglia for 38 years, from 878 to 917, when the region was reconquered by the Anglo-Saxons under King Edward of Wessex. The reconquering of East Anglia was thorough and sure, but there continued to be sporadic Viking raids until as late as 1069, the yeare of the last recorded attacks on Ipswich and Norwich. It can be reasonably established that Edmund succeeded to East Anglia immediately, or very soon, after a king called Æthelweard, and was the king reigning when the Danes arrived in 865.

 
East Anglia

Aelfric described the fate at which Ivar and his Danish forces arrive. But when the original tomb of Edmund was opened, a century later, it was discovered that Edmund's body lay uncorrupted. Many miracles are reported at the chapel. At some later time, when peace was re-established, a larger church was built to house the relics (Aelfric fails to mention, though it had appeared in Abbo's text, that this larger church was not on the original burial spot, but that the relics were carried to the monastery of Beodericsworth and a new church built there). There is some uncertainty as to the place of Edmund's death and first burial: it has traditionally been identified as Hoxne, but the earliest life of Edmund, by Abbo (in the tenth century) more credibly identified the place as Haegelisdun (modern "Hellesdon"). There is a Hellesdon near Norwich, but it seems unlikely that Edmund would have gone in that direction and to encounter the Danes who were invading from inland and wintering at Thetford, having marched from the north through Mercia. More likely, the location is a field called Hellsdon near Bradfield St. Clare, eight miles SE of Bury St. Edmunds. According to Archdeacon Hermann's life of Edmund, written in the late eleventh century, the king was buried at a place called Sutton, and there was a manor called "Sutton Hall" in the parish of Bradfield St. Clare.

Of the Lives of Ss. Edmund and Fremund, translated by John Lydgate, monk of the abbey of Bury St. Edmunds, at command of the Abbot Curteys, and presented to Henry VI in commemoration of his visit to the abbey for Christmas and Easter, 1433-1434. Beside having been the property of Henry VI, this manuscript is also said (as recorded in the Harley catalogue) to have been in the possession of King James the Second of Scotland (d. 1460), but the basis for this claim, if any, is not now known. The manuscript is in the possession of the king of England in the sixteenth century when Henry VIII gave it to Thomas Audley; on fol. 119v is the name "Audelay baro[n]"--this is Thomas Audley (1488-1544), created Baron Audley of Walden in 1538, who was for a time Lord Chancellor, after the resignation of Sir Thomas More (May 1532), and died 1544. Audley conducted much of the less savoury business of king and Cromwell in parliament, including seeing through the Commons and Lords several separate Acts of Succession; personally conducted Anne Boleyn to the Tower; sat in judgment in the trial of Thomas More, and acted as lord steward in the trials of various peers who had crossed the king. It appears that Henry VIII also saw fit on some occasion or another (presumably after Audley was created "Baron" in 1538) to give Audley the princely manuscript of the presentation copy of Lydgate's Lives of Ss. Edmund and Fremund, Harley 2278: on the last folio of the manuscript. His daughter, Margaret, was 2nd wife of Thomas Howard, 4th D. of Norfolk, their son being Lord William Howard of Naworth," and Harley 2278 presumably passed along this line of inheritance.