Oswald, King and Martyr
A.D. 642
Feast Day: August 5

Over the last four years we have featured Celtic saints, such as Hilda of Whitby and Cuthbert of Lindisfarne, who were not in fact Celts. It would be mildly ironic if the point were not that the values  and character of Celtic Christianity transcends Celtic culture and ethnicity. However, when we come to St. Oswald, King of Northumbria, no level of applicability can prevent the irony of his presence rising to the truly bizarre.

 First, of course, is that Oswald was an Angle, a leader among the tribes of Angles, Saxons and Jutes who drove the Celtic Britons to their refuges of Cornwall, Wales and Cumbria. Oswalds father  was the chieftain Aethelfrid, known as the destroyer. Bede tells one story of how this chieftain may have obtained this charming appellation. In Bedes highly partisan account, the British bishops rejection of Augustine of  Canterburys claim of authority, however due to Augustines haughtiness, was an act of willfulness and disobedience. Some years after that fateful encounter Athelfrid attacked the Britons in the West. According to Bede some 1200  monks from Bangor came to the site to pray for the defeat of the pagans. These monks were guarded by a small contingent of the Britons. Athelfrid noticed the monks and inquired their purpose. Upon learning their mission he  replied: If they pray to their God against me, they are fighting against us even if they do not bear arms. He made his first attack against the monks and less than 50 of the 1200 escaped alive.

 This same Aethelfrid had usurped the Northumbrian throne from his brother-in-law Edwin. When Aethelfrid was later killed in battle, Edwin returned to the throne, Aethelfrids children, including  Oswald, were sent to Iona for protection. Edwin himself became a Christian through the ministry of Paulinus, chaplain to his queen. However, Edwin was killed in battle with the combined forces of Penda, a pagan Celtic prince  and Cadwallon, a Christian one. Oswalds older brother, Eanfrid took the throne of Northumbria but was soon killed by Cadwallon. The kingship fell to Oswald who met Cadwallons superior forces at Heavenfelt. The night before the  battle, Oswald had a vision of Colum Cille who spread the protecting cover of his cloak over Oswald and his army. Taking this as a sign of Gods favor, Oswald erected a wooden cross in the field (a replica stands there today).  His army routed Cadwallon, and Oswald pursued and killed him.

 Having established his throne, Oswald sent to Iona rather than Canterbury for a bishop to come and evangelize his kingdom. Iona’s first emissary, Corman, found the rustic Anglo-Saxons an  unamenable flock and returned to Iona in disgust. The Iona community sent Aidan to replace him and Aidan set up his center of operations on the tidal island of Lindisfarne. Oswald had learned Gaelic while on Iona and as Aidan’s Anglo-Saxon was weak, the king accompanied the new bishop on his travels, translating for him as he preached. The role of the king in presenting the Gospel no doubt had quite an impact on the people.

 Bede tells another story of Oswald’s piety. The king and bishop Aidan were beginning their Easter feast with rich food served on a silver platter. When the king was informed that a great crowd of  the poor was begging for alms from their king, Oswald had the food sent out to them and the silver plate broken up and distributed among them. Aidan, moved by such generosity, took hold of Oswald’s right hand and cried may this  hand never perish!

 Some eight years after the victory at Heavenfelt, Oswald was slain in battle with Penda. Penda cut off his head and hands and placed them on stakes at the battlefield to intimidate the  Northumbrians. Oswalds younger brother, Oswy, took these remains and sent the head to Lindisfarne and the hands to the church at the royal capitol of Bebba (Bamburgh). In fulfillment of Aidans prayer, Oswalds right hand was  still uncorrupted when Bede wrote nearly a century later. The head of Oswald was deposited in St. Cuthbert’s coffin and found still there when it was opened at Durham in 1827.