Righteous Cædwalla, King of Wessex

Saint Cædwalla of Wessex

The twentieth of April is the Orthodox feast-day of a rather peculiar English saint: Cædwalla King of the West Saxons. A warlike and even brutal heathen for most of his life, he had a late-life conversion experience and was convinced by Saint Hædde of Winchester to go to Rome for his repentance, absolution and baptism. Cædwalla reached Rome, where he was indeed baptised. He died ten days later, leaving his kingdom to his son Ine.

His name is peculiar for an English king as it derives from the same British (that is to say, Welsh) root as ‘Cadwallon’. He was born into the Cerdicing royal family of the West Saxons – many of whom had similarly Celtic-sounding names. His father Cœnberht was a descendant of Ceawlin (or Celm), King of the West Saxons. Cædwalla spent much of his early life in exile – not an uncommon state of affairs for royal cousins who were deemed a threat to the regnant king’s power. However Cædwalla, a ‘daring young man of the royal house of the Gewissæ’, was not content to spend his exile lying down. He lived as the head of a gang of bandits in Chiltern Forest. He led his band of brigands into Sussex, slew their king Æþelwalh, and lay waste to the province ‘with slaughtering and plunder’. His men were repulsed by the South Saxon ealdormen Beorhthún and Andhún, and he was driven out of Sussex.

Cædwalla entered Wessex with his band of followers after his uncle Centwine relinquished the throne and went to live as a monk. He lay claim to the throne by force of arms in 685. Centwine’s ealdormen and þegnas were overthrown, though Saint Bede curiously uses the passive voice for this and doesn’t attribute it directly to Cædwalla. Cædwalla again invaded Sussex, killed Beorhthún and subjugated Sussex to the Gewissæ. Then he captured the Isle of Wight, where he sustained severe wounds that never really healed. He slaughtered the inhabitants, who were heathen Jutes, and settled West Saxons there instead. Even though he was not yet baptised, he seems to have been friendly to the Christian faith at this time, since he offered a full quarter of the Isle of Wight – three hundred hides of land – to Saint Wilfrið for use in building churches. Saint Wilfrið then entrusted this land to a clerk named Beornwine and a priest named Hiddila.

Cædwalla continued these punitive expeditions against his neighbours, especially Kent, which he conquered in 686. He left his brother and ealdorman Mul as overlord of Kent; however, the kingdom revolted against his rule less than a year later. Cædwalla answered with another expedition into Kent that left the typical burnt fields and villages in its wake. Shortly after this expedition into Kent, however, Cædwalla had a conversion experience after meeting with Bishop Hædde of Winchester. He left his crown to his son Ine, put on a pilgrim’s robe and set out for Rome.

Cædwalla managed to reach Rome in 689. Saint Bede says that he deferred his baptism, remaining heathen even until he reached Rome, as he sought to be baptised at the Tombs of the Apostles. He got his wish. After travelling through Gaul, and giving money for the establishment of new churches along his pilgrim’s path, he reached the Old City and met there with the Pope of Rome himself, the Antiochene Saint Sergius. Cædwalla repented of all his former idolatries and violence and desired to be accepted into the body of Christ. It was the Syrian saint himself who baptised Cædwalla in the name of the Holy Trinity, clad him in white garments, and christened him with the name of Peter. However, the newly-illumined Peter would repose in the Lord not ten days later, still clad in his white baptismal garments, due to the old battle-wounds he had suffered in his conquest of the Isle of Wight.

He was buried in Rome that year, beneath a marker that read ‘Cædwalla, King of the Saxons’. The later discovery of the grave of Cædwalla became a subject of political dispute between English and Welsh in the late 1500s. The Welshmen in Rome maintained that the grave in fact belonged to Saint Cadwaladr ap Cadwallon of Gwynedd, whose own pilgrimage to Rome had been recorded by Geoffrey of Monmouth. The English, on the other hand, maintained that Geoffrey of Monmouth had simply gotten Cædwalla and Cadwaladr confused – which seems the more likely case.

Cædwalla did not lead a particularly saintly life. He was not renowned for any ascetical discipline, nor for any particular kindness of spirit of mildness of demeanour. He was, like Saint Moses before his reformation, a violent brigand; and like Saint Helga, as a ruler he behaved like a vengeful tyrant. His only true claims to holiness lay in his generosity to the Church, even though he was still heathen; in his pilgrimage; and in his final act of repentance. The fact that even Cædwalla could go through the gates of heaven by putting off his riches and power and humbling himself in the manner of Christ, should be encouragement to the rest of us. Righteous Cædwalla, prince and pilgrim, pray to God for us!