King Oswiu and a Touch of Murder

Today, 15th February 2025, is the publication date of my new book, Murder in Anglo-Saxon England: Justice, Wergild, Revenge, and it's rather apt that 15th February (AD 670) is also the date of the death of King Oswiu of Northumbria, who features early on in the book.

The book opens with the assassination attempt on the life of King Edwin of Northumbria. He had been forced into exile by a rival king, Æthelfrith of Bernicia (the kingdom which eventually formed the northern part of Northumbria). Æthelfrith had killed the king of Deira (the southern part) and driven his family, including Edwin, into exile.

Well, not all of the family. He married Edwin's sister (I doubt she was a willing bride) and had a number of sons by her, of whom Oswiu was thought to be one. I say 'thought' because while it is almost always said that Oswiu was the product of that marriage, and therefore half Bernician, half Deiran, he had tremendous difficulty establishing his rule over the southern kingdom.

Edwin had defeated Æthelfrith in battle in 616 with the help of King Rædwald of East Anglia (he of alleged Sutton Hoo burial fame), causing his sister's sons to retreat into exile, and ruled both of the Northumbrian kingdoms until he was killed in battle by King Penda of the Mercians. First, his nephew Oswald came out of exile to rule both of the kingdoms, until he, too, was killed in battle by Penda.

Oswiu then stepped forward, but was unable to secure his grip on Deira. It took him some time to travel south to retrieve his brother's body from the battlefield, which suggests that he did not feel secure enough to leave his power base. He may well not have been Oswald's full brother, something which is hinted at in Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English Peoples, and this might be one of the reasons why he chose as his bride a princess from Kent, whose name was Eanflæd. In fact, she was only half Kentish, because her father was Edwin of Deira. This marriage must have been designed to help him get a surer footing in Deira.

The trouble for Oswiu was that there was another claimant to that kingdom. Oswine was the son of Edwin's cousin, who had been exiled at the same time as Edwin. He now ruled Deira and Oswiu was not happy.

According to Bede, the two rival kings raised armies, but Oswine decided that the odds of victory in battle were too heavily stacked against him, and withdrew. He went with one retainer to the house of a man named Hunwold, whom he assumed to be loyal. He was not; he betrayed Oswine and the Deiran king was killed. Oswiu had removed his rival and now ruled both kingdoms.

But this was not quite the happy ending he might have wished for, because Oswine was related to Eanflæd, and she was not best pleased that her husband had had her second cousin killed.

The subtitle of my new book mentions wergild, a man price. Every life was measured in terms of worth, with the wergild payable to the kin of anyone unlawfully killed. Thus Eanflæd demanded the payment due, but not in the form of coin. Rather Oswiu, in expiation of his crime, had an abbey built at a place called Gilling, where prayers were to be said for the murdered king and for Oswiu. The first abbot was another kinsman of Eanflæd's.

This is one of two notable examples of wergild being demanded by royal women after their kinsmen had been killed and that payment being made in the form of the establishment of religious houses. The other case will be detailed in a future blog post.

This is not the only reason Oswiu features so prominently in the book. He had a complicated love life, and it's thought that he had children by three different women. One of his sons, Alhfrith, appears to have ruled Deira as a subkingdom for his father, but their relationship was strained.

In 664 the famous Synod of Whitby took place, remembered chiefly for establishing once and for all the method by which the date of Easter is calculated. Father and son were on different sides of the debate, and Alhfrith disappears from the record after this. Perhaps he died of a fever, or in battle. But he was not the first Deiran subking to disappear from the records - along with Oswine, we also might wonder what happened to Oswiu's nephew who also held that precarious title for a short while before again, vanishing from the chronicles - and there is a tantalising hint as to what might have happened to Alhfrith.

In Bewcastle in Cumbria, in the region where Alhfrith's mother called home, there is a huge stone cross, which appears to have been erected in memory of Alhfrith. Did he challenge his father, lose the battle, and end his days in exile? Or was his death more sinister?

More detail and insights into these incidents can be found in the book: 

Murder in Anglo-Saxon England: Justice, Wergild, Revenge

'We all love a good murder story. Historian and author Annie Whitehead has collated around 100 cases in Anglo-Saxon England, from regicides to robberies gone wrong, and from personal feuds to state-sanctioned slaughter, examining their veracity and asking what, if anything, they can tell us about the motives of those who recorded them and about Anglo-Saxon governance and society. The records contain many stories of murder, some of which include details of witchcraft and poisoning, or of betrayal of the worst kind, leaving us with the impression that this period was one of lawlessness and rebellion. But how many of these tales are true, and how do they square with a period known to have had lengthy, detailed law codes and harsh punishment for unlawful killing? Was the ‘Viking’ practice of killing by blood eagle – with reference to King Aelle of Northumbria, an alleged victim – a myth or real? Annie Whitehead also makes a few accusations herself – invoking the old adage that there is no smoke without fire…' 

 Available now from Amazon, Amberley Publishing, and all good book stores.

St Wilfrid and his Crypts

Last week, on my way back from a research trip to York, I called in at Ripon, to visit the cathedral there, or rather more specifically, to go underneath it. Stunningly beautiful though the cathedral is, it was the rather more mundane and plain crypt which attracted me.

I read recently that the crypt at Ripon is deemed to be 'creepy' but I didn't find it so. Perhaps it helped that there was a concert of organ music going on above while I was down there, but I think the crypt at Hexham, also associated with St Wilfrid, is perhaps the creepier of the two.

Ripon is proud of the fact that its crypt is the oldest in the country, beating Hexham to the title by just a few years.

Wilfrid had been inspired by what he had seen in Rome - ornate stone churches with catacombs - and he used stonemasons from overseas to build his church at Ripon, at a time when most 'English' churches were built of wood. The crypt contained holy relics, connected with St Peter, and it was lit by candlelight, which illuminated gold, silver, and purple wall decorations. The idea was to inspire, and it surely succeeded.

So, who was Wilfrid, and why was he at Ripon?

I think it's fair to say that he had a colourful career and, though he is remembered as a religious man who achieved great things, he also had an uncanny knack of annoying people, so much so that he found himself banished and briefly imprisoned.

He first comes to our notice when, as a fourteen-year-old boy, and according to one tradition, anxious to escape his wicked stepmother, he presented himself to Eanflæd, queen consort of Oswiu, king of Northumbria, who sponsored him and sent him off to study at Lindisfarne. Thereafter his chequered career is too long, and his fortunes too variable, to condense into a blog post (a quick glance at the length of his Wikipedia page will demonstrate that!), and I recommend you read Alan Thacker's detailed article at the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography and his contribution in The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Anglo-Saxon England. 

Suffice to say for this post about the crypts that, after a time abroad, he was heavily involved with the discussions at the Synod of Whitby in 664, a vocal advocate for the argument which won the day on controversial matters such as the dating of Easter. He was appointed abbot of Ripon, but this was one of many contentious events in his career, because he expelled the abbot and the monks there, including the future St Cuthbert. He dedicated his new stone church to St Peter.

By 672, Oswiu of Northumbria had died, and his son Ecgfrith was married to Æthelthryth. It was she who reputedly remained a virgin throughout this, her second, marriage, and was encouraged to do so by Wilfrid. One tradition has her escaping from Ecgfrith (it's likely that he was happy to let her go, given that she was ten years older than him and he had no heir) before she went on to become abbess of Ely. However, whilst still in the north, she gave Wilfrid a large parcel of land at Hexham, where he built another stone church, this time dedicated to St Andrew.

Hexham Abbey is not so very far away from Ripon, but the existing building looks rather different. Wilfrid's church was completed in 678 but partly destroyed by Viking raids in 875. In the early twelfth century, the church became the Priory of Canons Regular of St Augustine and from the mid-twelfth to mid-thirteenth century more building took place.

In 1296, Scottish raiders set fire to the priory, and in the process destroyed shrines, books and relics. It is said that molten lead ran down the night stair and can still be seen to this day. 

But of course for me, the interest is much deeper down, in the crypt. With a good ethos of ‘waste not, want not’ recycled Roman bricks were used, from the remains of the Roman fort and town at Corbridge just a few miles away; Wilfrid's church was probably built entirely from stones taken from this site.

Is it the darker stone that makes Hexham a little gloomier, perhaps a little spookier? Let's have a reminder of Ripon again:

Well, whatever the case, for me it's a thrill to stand in either place, coming so close to the long-ago past, and feeling very in touch with the troublesome love-him-or-loathe-him Wilfrid. There are so few buildings which survive from the pre-Conquest era that a chance to visit those that still exist should never be passed up.

But in case all the gloomy pictures of ancient crypts aren't quite colourful enough, here's another glory of Ripon Cathedral:

Despite his 'interesting' career, he is rightly revered there, and there is also a beautiful painting of Queen Eanflæd by artist Sara Shamma:

Over at Hexham Wilfrid is also rightly remembered, but so too is his patron, Eanflæd's daughter-in-law, Æthelthryth:

Both are beautiful sites. From the outside you would never guess what 'Anglo-Saxon' architecture they are hiding. Here are some more images:

Clockwise from top left:
Hexham Abbey, Hexham Crypt,
Ripon Crypt, Ripon Cathedral

Wilfrid appears in my novel, The Sins of the Father, as do Eanflæd and Æthelthryth. Eanflæd also features heavily in the previous novel, Cometh the Hour, and both women's stories are in my book Women of Power in Anglo-Saxon England.

For details of another 'Anglo-Saxon' crypt, this time in Repton, Derbyshire, read my blog post HERE

[all photos by and copyright of the author, taken with all permissions from the relevant authorities at Ripon Cathedral and Hexham Abbey]