The Two Arwald Brothers

The Two Arwald Brothers were two young princes of the Isle of Wight, younger brothers of King Arwald, baptised and then put to death in 686. Their true names are lost, so they are called collectively Saint Arwald, after their elder brother Arwald, the last pagan Anglo-⁠Saxon king of the Isle of Wight. In 686 the island was invaded by Cædwalla of Wessex, still a pagan; Bede says that the whole population was then heathen and that the invader sought to slaughter every inhabitant without mercy and populate the island afresh with West Saxons, promising that if he conquered it he would give a fourth of it to the Church. Arwald was killed in the invasion, and his two younger brothers fled to the mainland of Britain. When they were found, Cædwalla, who had been wounded in the fighting, ordered them to be executed, but Cynibert, a bishop from Hreutford, persuaded him to have the boys baptised first. Bede says they were the first fruits of the island who believed, and that they joyfully underwent the temporal death through which they did not doubt they were to pass to the life of the soul, which is everlasting. Christianity was then imposed on Wight. They are commemorated on 22 April (new style; 5 May in the old style), as saints of the undivided Church.