Edmund

The earliest and most reliable accounts represent St. Edmund as descended from the preceding kings of East Anglia, though, according to later legends, he was born at Nuremberg (Germany), son to an otherwise unknown King Alcmund of Saxony. Born in 841 he was made king of Norfolk by the clergy and nobles on Christmas Day in 855, at the age of 14. The following year he was accepted as king by Suffolk, as well. He is said to have been a talented, successful and virtuous ruler. He learned the Psalms by heart, partly in honour of King David upon whom he modelled himself.
At the time of Edmund's reign Norfolk and Suffolk suffered from Danish raids. In 866 there was a particularly large invasion of Danes. They came first to the lands of the Angles, and made winter quarters among the East Angles. The East Angles made peace with them and supplied them with horses. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records it thus:

Æthelred, Æthelberht's brother received the kingdom of Wessex.
That year a great heathen force came into English land, and they
took winter quarters in East Anglia; there they were horsed, and
they made peace with them.

In the intervening years the Danes raided York and Nottingham, before moving south, and by 870 they had arrived in Edmund's lands again. According to tradition Edmund was initially successful in his battle against the Danes, but they were soon reinforced, with his resulting martyrdom. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle gives no details as to the nature of his death, though:

The force went over Mercia to East Anglia, and took winter
quarters at Thetford. In that year, St. Edmund the king
fought against them and the Danes took the victory, killed the
king, and overcame all the land. They destroyed all the churches
they came to; the same time they came to Peterborough, they
burned and broke, killed the abbotts and monks, and all they found
there. They made that which was very great such that it became
nothing. That year, Archbishop Ceolnoth died.

The pagan Danes pressed terms upon Edmund which as a Christian he felt bound to refuse. In his desire to avert a fruitless massacre, he disbanded his troops and himself retired towards Framlingham; on the way he fell into the hands of the invaders. Having loaded him with chains, his captors conducted him to Ingvar, whose impious demands he again rejected, declaring his religion dearer to him than his life. His martyrdom took place in 870 at Hoxne in Suffolk. After beating him with cudgels, the Danes tied him to a tree, and cruelly tore his flesh with whips. Throughout these tortures Edmund continued to call upon the name of Jesus, until at last, exasperated by his constancy, his enemies began to discharge arrows at him. This cruel sport was continued until his body had the appearance of a hedgehog, when Ingvar commanded his head to be struck off.

Fig. 1. King Edmund being shot with arrows from a 12th-century manuscript written and illuminated at Bury St. Edmunds.

From his first burial-place at Hoxne his relics were removed in 903 to Beodricsworth, since called St. Edmundsbury, where arose the famous abbey of that name. His feast is observed 20 November, and he is represented in Christian art with sword and arrow, the instruments of his torture.

Fig. 2. Memorial penny commemorating the martyrdom of Edmund, issued about AD 900 by the Christianised Danes of East Anglia.

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