20 November
Edmund, King of the East Angles, Martyr, 870
When the heathen Anglo-Saxons invaded Christian Britain in the
400's, they eventually established seven kingdoms: Essex, Wessex,
Sussex (East Saxons, West Saxons, and South Saxons), Mercia,
Northumbria, and East Anglia (three kingdoms of the Angles), and the
Jute kingdom of Kent. (The borders between these ancient kingdoms
are still borders between regions speaking English with different
accents today.) Under the influence of missionaries from the Celts
and from continental Europe, these peoples became Christian, only to
be faced themselves by a wave of heathen invaders.
Edmund was born about 840, became King of East Anglia in about 855,
and in 870 faced a horde of marauding Danes, who moved through the
countryside, burning churches and slaughtering villagers wholesale.
On reaching East Anglia, their leaders confronted Edmund and offered
him peace on condition that he would rule as their vassal and forbid
the practice of the Christian faith. Edmund refused this last
condition, fought, and was captured. He was ill-treated and killed.
His burial place is the town of Bury St. Edmunds.
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