Edmund of East Anglia. King and Martyr

Today the Church commemorates Edmund of East Anglia, a King who held fast to Christ when his kingdom and his life were taken from him.

Edmund ruled the East Angles in the eastern part of England. He worshiped Christ, cared for the poor and for widows, and sought to restrain those who injured the weak. He exercised royal authority without treating the people in his care as possessions to be used for his own glory.

Then a Viking army invaded the country. Its leaders destroyed settlements and killed the people who could not escape. Ivar, one of their commanders, sent a messenger to Edmund. He demanded a share of the King’s treasure. Edmund was to remain King only under Ivar’s authority.

Edmund called a Bishop to hear the demand and give counsel. At first, Edmund said that he would rather die fighting for his people. The Bishop answered that his people had already been slaughtered and that he no longer had troops with which to resist. He urged the King to save his life, either by fleeing or by accepting Ivar’s terms. Edmund answered that he could not abandon Christ, nor did he wish to survive alone after so many of his people had died.

Edmund refused to shed the messenger’s blood. He followed Christ and was willing to die if that was God’s will. He sent the messenger back with his answer: he would not submit to Ivar unless Ivar first believed in Jesus Christ.

The messenger reported Edmund’s answer to Ivar, who ordered the King to be seized. The East Anglian forces had been overwhelmed. When the invaders reached him, Edmund laid aside his weapons. He remembered Christ in the garden, forbidding Peter to defend him with the sword. The men who came for Edmund found a King who would not strike them.

They bound him and mocked him. They beat him with rods, took him to a tree, and tied him there. While they scourged him, Edmund continued to call upon Jesus Christ. Then they shot arrows into his body. Still he confessed the Lord. At last Ivar ordered him beheaded.

Edmund’s executioners hid his head among the brambles in a wood and left his body behind. When they had gone, the survivors came to find their King. They searched for the head, calling to one another as they moved through the trees.

Edmund’s head answered from the thicket: “Here, here, here.” They followed the voice and found a wolf guarding the head between its paws. The creature had not harmed it. When they took the head away, the wolf walked beside them until they reached the village. Then it returned to the wood.

The people placed Edmund’s head with his body and buried him. In time, they built a wooden chapel over his grave. When the grave was opened, they found that his wounds had healed and his head was joined again to his body.

A red line remained around his neck where the sword had cut it.

His body was brought to the place that became Bury St Edmunds. Christians came there to honor the Martyr and to pray. In 1020, Cnut, a Danish King of England, established a community of Benedictine monks at his shrine and provided for the building of a stone church.

Edmund died calling upon Christ, and God kept his body for the resurrection. To that same Lord we entrust ourselves, in life and in death.