Saint Óswald of Northumbria
I’ve posted before about Óswald, the saintly Martyr-King of Northumbria whose feast day also happens to fall the day before the anniversary of the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima. But I have never quite done him justice. The man figures very large in the Christian imagination of the British Isles, having figured not only as Holy Bede’s model of the ideal king, but also the model for Aragorn in JRR Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy.
Like his literary spiritual descendant Strider, Óswald was raised in exile, his family having met with misfortune before any of the English nobility of the north were ever baptised. His father Æþelfríð King of Bernicia, was killed in 616 in battle against the East Angles when Óswald was probably only eleven or twelve years of age, and when his East Anglian-allied uncle Éadwine took power in Bernicia he was forced to flee with his brothers into the Scottish kingdom of Dál Riata (in the far west, nowadays encompassing Argyll and parts of Ulster in Northern Ireland). He became aware of Christianity through the Scottish monks on the isle of Iona at the monastery of Saint Columba, and it was there that he received Christ.
Óswald’s uncle Éadwine, who in the meanwhile had also been baptised, met his end in a beatific manner at the hands of the allied heathen princes Cadwallon ap Cadfan and Penda of Mercia before he had the chance to convert his people. His heathen kinsmen Éanfrið (Óswald’s brother) and Ósríc took power, but they too were slain by Cadwallon, who plundered and despoiled Bernicia and Deira for a full year. Óswald was compelled by the suffering of his folk to return, despite being outnumbered. Cadwallon had a ‘vast force’ of Britons ‘which he boasted of as irresistible’, whereas Óswald had only about seven hundred troops – a mix of Scots and exiled Angles. On the eve of the battle, taking shelter near one corner of the old Roman Wall, Óswald righted a rood before him, knelt down and asked God’s intercession for those who would trust in him in their need and plight. The rood had been wrought and bound together in haste; and a hole dug to right it in the ground – and Óswald, not content that his men should do the work rather than he himself, held the base of the rood upright with his own body while his hireth filled in the earth around the foot. And then he shouted to his men, saying: ‘Let us all kneel together, and ask the true and living God Almighty of His mercy to shield us from the overbearing ill-rule of our foes, since He knows that we fight in a righteous cause to save our people!’
The battle at Cantscaul, thereafter referred to as Heavenfield by the English on account of their victory that day, was a total rout for Cadwallon. As Óswald’s Angles and Scots attacked at the break of dawn (Helm’s Deep, anyone?), the hearts of the heathen Britons melted, and they were put to flight. The Angles gave chase, cutting down the Britons as they fled; Cadwallon himself was caught and killed by Rowley Burn – which was then called Denisesburn. The rood which Óswald had stood there later worked many wonders, and was known for healing the sick. For a hundred years after, English folk would still take slivers from the wood of this cross to put into water, such that sick men or beasts might be cured by drinking it.
Despite his exile from his homeland at his uncle’s hands (and despite not lifting the ban on Éadwine’s widow Saint Æþelburg or their children into the country), Óswald did honour to his uncle’s memory by endeavouring to complete his missionary work. York Minster, whose building had been started by Saint Éadwine for the purposes of his baptism, was completed by his nephew. Óswald brought back with him also several Scottish monks, including the gentle, mild and moderate Saint Aidan, to whom he gave the isle of Lindisfarne which would later grow to be hallowed and many-storied through the fruits of Saint Aidan’s ascetic labours. Saint Aidan at first did not speak English, so Óswald himself – who spoke both Scottish and English with fluency – served as Aidan’s interpreter as he travelled on foot throughout his kingdom. Óswald also gave great sums of money for the establishment of churches and monasteries, and invited more holy men and brothers from Scotland to teach the new English monks how to live a regular and disciplined life of prayer. In this way Óswald became a great benefactor to the Celtic tradition of Christianity (including, as Saint Bede somewhat sniffily notes, the erroneous Celtic method of dating the feast of Pascha).
Óswald became famed for his humility and for his love for the poor. As Bede recounts, on one feast of Pascha, a silver tray loaded down with many fine delicacies and rich meats was presented to him and Saint Aidan when they sat down to eat. Just then one of Óswald’s þegnas, whose job it was to stand outside and give to the needy as they came, came inside and told Óswald King that a great throng of poor and homeless folk had gathered in the street begging alms. Óswald at once ordered all the Easter meats and all the fine food be given to them, and the silver tray it was served on broken up and distributed amongst the needy. When this was done, Saint Aidan grabbed the king’s hand and exclaimed: ‘May this hand never perish!’ Saint Aidan’s words proved later prophetic, for when Óswald was slain in battle, his right arm was severed from his body and was later found to be incorrupt.
Óswald was, in addition to being generous and pro-poor in his outlook, a remarkably effective prince, speaking from a political point-of-view. He managed to unify, without bloodshed, the kingdoms of Bernicia and Deira into a single Northumbrian kingdom. In addition to this, his astute adoption of Celtic custom and his friendliness with Celtic monks in particular made it easier for him to extend his sway over British, Pictish and Scottish subjects – the great majority of whom, unlike the cruel and impious Cadwallon, had not forgotten their faith. He kept up friendly relations with the newly-christened West Saxons who had been baptised by Saint Berin. He served as godfather to Cynegils King of Wessex, and even married his daughter Cyneburg – they had one son together, Œðilwald, who would rule Deira after his father’s death. His kingdom and his influence indeed extended so far that Óswald was called ‘Brytenwealda’: ‘Wide-Ruler’, the equivalent of the Irish title of High King.
Bede recounts that Óswald was steadfast in prayer and often rose early in the morning to keep the service of Lauds. The king would also pray constantly throughout the day, and whenever he sat to eat or rest, he would do so with his palms up as his mind was constantly on the Lord. He ruled Northumbria for eight years.
Óswald would fall in battle against Penda of Mercia at the Battle of Maserfield on the fifth of August, 642, at the age of 38 – nowadays the civil parish of Oswestry in Shropshire (a parish which, if memory serves, receives some attention in the third of Edith Pargeter’s Chronicles of Brother Cadfael, Monk’s Hood). Óswald was said to have been praying for the souls of his soldiers when the deadly blow was struck. Penda had Óswald’s body beheaded, and his head and right arm mounted on stakes for display. Óswald’s successor Óswíu would later visit the place and remove the holy king’s relics: the head and body were translated to Lindisfarne, while the incorrupt arm that Saint Aidan had blessed was sent to Bamburgh. Some years later Óswíu’s daughter Saint Ósþrýð – a fast friend both to the Church and to Óswald’s widow Cyneburg – would have her uncle’s relics translated to Bardney Abbey in Lincolnshire. (The arm is now in the care of Peterborough Cathedral.)
Bede waxes quite voluble about the number of miracles that were later attributed to Óswald’s cross, Óswald’s relics and the spot where Óswald fell at Maserfield. When one of his arms touched the ground there a holy well was said to have sprung up. The beneficiaries of Óswald’s effective intercessory prayers for healing, in Bede’s recounting, are many and various in character. One of Saint Willibrord’s acquaintances from his sojourn in Ireland, a bookish Scot who was rather careless for his soul, was cured of the plague by touching the stake on which Saint Óswald’s head had been fixed. A little boy in a monastery was cured of the ague when he went to pray at Saint Óswald’s tomb. A sack of earth from Maserfield, hallowed by the saint’s blood, was hung from a rafter in a thatch-and-wattle house which caught fire – only the beam on which the sack had been hung was spared from the flames; later, many poor folk would take a pinch of this earth with some water to be cured of various maladies.
Saint Óswald remained a highly popular saint throughout the Old English period, and his name graces seventy churches throughout England. The later West Saxon kings – particularly Æþelstán – certainly felt an affinity for him, and not without reasons: he was, after all, the godfather of Cynegils and the husband of Cyneburg. The House of Wessex did much to promote his cultus including saving his relics from the Danes. His cultus even spread to the Continent – particularly France and Germany – but seems to have fallen into obscurity after the Norman Conquest. Still, the literary figure of Aragorn seems to be proof that the hold Óswald King had over the English imagination was fairly indelible. Holy and righteous martyr-king Óswald, friend to the poor and bringer of the Gospel to Northumbria, we beseech you intercede with Christ our God to save our souls!
Mighty works did the holy Óswald King
Accomplish for the Faith,
For in his great and surpassing love
He willingly laid down his life for the people of God;
Wherefore, Christ God filled his sacred relics
With mighty power, to heal the sick
And move men’s souls to compunction.
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