Bardney Abbey, Lincoln
The fourth of May is the feast day in the Orthodox Church of Saint Æþelræd, King of Mercia, and his passion-bearing Northumbrian wife, Saint Ósþrýð. Two incredibly devout monarchs of Old England, Æþelræd and Ósþrýð were more renowned for their gifts to the Church than for any great deeds in war or diplomacy – even though their very marriage was meant to smooth over the rough relations between Mercia and Northumbria. Ósþrýð, after all, was the niece of Saint Óswald, and greatly advanced his cultus by her personal devotion and piety. Her wrongful and politically-motivated death was one of the factors that made Æþelræd forsake the world and take the Benedictine cowl.
Saint Æþelræd was one of the Iclingas, son of the infamous Penda of Mercia, born around the year 645. His older brother Wulfhere managed to reëstablish Mercian sovereignty from Northumbria and was named king in 658, when Æþelræd was thirteen years old. In order to secure a peace with Northumbria, he was married to the daughter of Óswiu King, a Christ-loving and generous-hearted girl named Ósþrýð. Wulfhere died of illness in 675, and Æþelræd took the throne.
One of his very first acts as king was to raise an army, march south, invade Kent and raze Rochester to the ground. This may have been a punitive expedition against Hlóðhere of Kent, whose brother Ecgberht had ordered the two sons of Eormenræd of Kent to be murdered, which suggests that he may have been close kin of the two young boys. On the other hand, it may have been an attempt to keep Hlóðhere from threatening Surrey, over which Wulfhere had exercised suzerainty. Whatever the grounds, Hlóðhere was forced to acknowledge Æþelræd as overlord, and Rochester as a see was reduced to penury.
Æþelræd also threatened strife with his neighbours northward, though here Saint Theodore of Tarsos intervened to keep the peace. There was a battle on the Trent between Mercia and Northumbria in which Ósþrýð’s brother Ælfwine was killed. This could have led to further violence between the two neighbouring kingdoms, but Saint Theodore managed to convince Æþelræd to choose the path of wisdom. At Theodore’s urging, Æþelræd made a formal apology to the Northumbrians as well as a payment of weregild for Ælfwine’s life.
Æþelræd King was, in fact, a far better builder than he was a fighter – particularly when it came to churches. He coöperated with Saint Theodore’s plans for a reorganisation of the English Church in Mercia, as the Bishopric of Lichfield was growing altogether too large, ungainly and irregular. He was assuredly influenced in this by his pious wife Ósþrýð, and together the two of them made substantial donations to the foundation of new churches throughout his territory including Long Newnton, Somerford Keynes and Tetbury. Tradition holds that Æþelræd was involved in the foundation of Saint Mary’s Abbey in Abingdon. He certainly founded Bardney Abbey, where he would one day renounce the world and follow Christ in the monastic path, and both he and Ósþrýð would become regular and generous patrons of this Benedictine house of prayer.
Æþelræd had a stormy, up-and-down relationship with Saint Wilfrið, which was the mirror of his relationships with most other English kings. At first the two did not get along at all; the strong personality of Wilfrið combined with Æþelræd’s interest in keeping Northumbria sweet all but assured the exiled bishop would meet with a frosty welcome. The king’s tune changed significantly toward the end of his earthly career. Whether that was because one or both of them had mellowed in temper, or because Æþelræd’s relationship with Northumbria had deteriorated, is unclear. Nonetheless, Æþelræd became a steady supporter of the aging and battle-weary Wilfrið in his attempts to return home from exile and settle in his beloved abbey at Ripon.
In 697, Æþelræd’s wife Ósþrýð was brutally slain by his own þegnas. One hypothesis is that she was killed in vengeance over her sister Ealhflæd’s complicity in Peada’s death. Or it could simply have been the case that Northumbrians like Ósþrýð were simply not that well-liked in Mercia at the time. However, because Ósþrýð was a true and devout supporter of the Church, and because her death was considered unjust and politically-motivated, she has been considered a saint of the pre-Schismatic Church. It would be appropriate, in Orthodox terms, to call her a ‘passion-bearer’: someone who met her death in a Christlike way but who was not killed expressly for her faith. Ósþrýð was buried, apparently at her husband’s insistence, in Bardney Abbey alongside her uncle Saint Óswald, whose cultus she had encouraged throughout her life.
Seven years after his wife’s death, Æþelræd died to the world, gave up his crown to his son Cœnred, and went to live as a simple monk at Bardney. It may well be that Ósþrýð’s death was a determining factor in this decision, in which case his desire to live close by her relics may be seen as a touching gesture of affection. Or it may have been a broader sense of disillusionment with the politics, violence and intrigue of the Mercian court. Be that as it may, even as a monk, he did keep abreast of political affairs; he was apparently the instrument of reconciliation between his son and Saint Wilfrið. He did not likely long outlive his son, who died in 709. He was buried at Bardney and venerated as a local saint alongside his wife. Righteous monarchs Æþelræd and Ósþrýð, just rulers and benefactors of monasteries, pray unto Christ our God that our souls may be saved!
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