Edwin of Northumbria

Saint Edwin was king of Northumbria from about 616 until his death in 633. He was the first king of northern England to receive the Christian faith, and after he fell in battle he was venerated as a saint. He is commemorated on 12 October.

Exile

Edwin was born around 586, a son of Ælle, the first known king of Deira. When King Æthelfrith of Bernicia took over Deira, the young man had to go into exile. Nothing is certain about his earliest years of wandering; later traditions place him at the court of the king of Gwynedd, but by the 610s he was certainly in Mercia, under the protection of King Cearl, whose daughter Cwenburg he married. Around 616 he found refuge with Rædwald of East Anglia. Bede relates that Æthelfrith tried to induce Rædwald to kill the fugitive, and the king was ready to do it until his wife persuaded him otherwise. Rædwald went to war instead and defeated Æthelfrith at the river Idle in 616.

Reign

After this victory Edwin was set on the throne of Northumbria, that is, of Bernicia and Deira together. When Rædwald died, around 624, he became the most powerful ruler in Britain, and Bede counts him among the kings who held primacy over the other Anglo-⁠Saxon kings. The same historian speaks of the order and justice that prevailed in his land.

Baptism

Edwin asked for the hand of Æthelburh, sister of King Eadbald of Kent. Eadbald agreed only on condition that the suitor become a Christian, and through her marriage the faith was to take root in the north, as it had in Kent through the marriage of her mother, Bertha. With the queen came the missionary Paulinus, sent from Rome, who was to be the first bishop of York. At their urging Edwin was baptized in 627.

Death

After seventeen years of rule, in 633, Edwin was defeated and killed at Hatfield Chase by the combined armies of Cadwallon, king of the Britons, and Penda, the pagan king of Mercia. He is said to have died on 12 October. The kingdom split again into Bernicia and Deira under two pagan kings, until Oswald, son of Æthelfrith, defeated Cadwallon and united Northumbria once more. The Church remembers Edwin as the king who opened the way to Christ for the north of England.