There are fields full of Cavaliers and Roundheads, still fighting over the fate of England. Roman soldiers marching along the roads they built. Tragic Tudor queens, often minus their heads. And you can’t move for Victorian phantoms, presumably conjured up from all of those seances they were holding. What does seem to be in short supply in this spectred isle however are the ghosts of Saxons.
If somewhere was going to be haunted by a Saxon spirit, it would be Seckington. The Saxon Chronicle states that in 755, ‘Æthelbald, king of the Mercians, was slain at Seckington and his body lies at Repton‘. The account of the assassination is minimal but accounts say he was betrayed by his own bodyguards, some suggesting that his successor, Beornred of Mercia, was behind the treachery.
After Æthelbald’s death, Beornred seized the Mercian throne. Little is known about him and within a year, Æthelbald’s cousin Offa launched his own claim to the throne and most likely offed him in the process. By contrast, there is much to be said about Offa, but as I started on the subject of murder, let’s continue on that theme.
(C) The Portable Antiquities Scheme
A marriage between King Æthelberht of East Anglia and one of the daughters of Offa and Cynethryth of Mercia was arranged to take place at a palace on Sutton Walls in Herefordshire. Yet before the bridegroom could make it to the altar and pledge his hand in marriage, he was beheaded. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle attributes the deed to Offa. By the twelfth century there’s a shift in narrative and blame to Cynethryth. Was she really the wicked queen she is depicted as by chroniclers like Roger of Wendover or was it a cynical attempt to wash at least some of the blood off Offa’s hands? We know Cynethryth was powerful, her name appearing on charters and her face appearing on coins. Perhaps there’s an element of medieval misogyny involved in the tarnishing of her image? After Offa died in 796, Cynethryth took holy orders and became the abbess of a monastery at Cookham. In 2021, archaeologists found the foundations of this abbey alongside Cookham church and further excavations may even find the final resting place of this misrepresented Mercian queen.
We’ve wandered a long way from Lichfield so let’s end our journey much closer to home. In 716, King Ceolred of Mercia was buried at the Cathedral, despite the fact that he had died at a feast, ‘gibbering with demons and cursing the priests of God’. St Boniface believed him to have been possessed by a demon but I strongly suspect he was poisoned. I’d be very interested to see if his successor Æthelbald was on the guest list, bringing us a full and vicious circle back to the beginning of this post.
Sources:
The wanderings of a pen and pencil by F. P. Palmer
https://www.suttonwalls.co.uk/fact-pages
Women of Power in Anglo-Saxon England, Annie Whitehead
