The first
Christian Hicklings
Penda was the
last pagan king of Mercia and his children became Christian converts.
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ing Penda and his wife Cyneuise were faithful to their
ancestral heritage all their lives. Their children Peada, Cyneburh, Wulfhere,
Cyneswith and Ethelred all became Christians.
Peada married Elfleda in 653, daughter of the
Christian king Oswy of Northumbria, on condition that he became a Christian. His
father died at the hands of his Christian Father-in-Law at Winwaed in 654. This was regaled by Bede as a victory for Christ
over the pagan gods. In 654 Peada
became the first Christian king of all Mercia. In 655 he and king Oswy of
Northumbria <founded a minster to the glory of christ and the honour of St
Peter at Medeshamstede> (now Peterborough). A year later Peada was murdered
and was succeeded by Wulfhere as k. of Mercia who continued the building of the
abbey where he was buried in 675. Their
son, Coenred, was k. of Mercia 704-8 and their daughter, (St) Werburh, joined
the community at nearby Ely. In 675 Aethelred became king. He saw over the
completion and dedication of St Peter’s Medeshamstede and dedicated lands to
it. Included were Briudun (Breedon) and Hrepingas (Repton) on the Trent,
previously important pagan sites where monasteries were built and areas where
Hicklings still live even today. The cream of known Anglo-Saxon 8th/10th
century carvings from the original minster at Breedon on the Hill has been
preserved there in the Church of St Mary and St Hardulph.
Breedon On The Hill, Leicestershire
Cyneburh quitted the royal court and founded <a
monastery for nuns> at a place that became known as Cyneburhcastre, later
abbreviated to Castor (near Peterborough).
She took over a deserted palace, the 2nd largest Roman building in
Britain (used from 250 - 450). It overlooked the industrial town of DVROBRIVAE,
famous for its distinctive pottery known as <Castor Ware>. Cyneswith
joined her sister and succeeded her as abbess when Cyneburh died in 665. An
Anglo-Saxon church was constructed in the Roman palace forecourt, but the Danes
destroyed it. The present beautiful Church at Castor was rebuilt by the Normans
and dedicated to Saint Kyneburgha in 1124.
Guthlac (673-714) and his sister Pega were children
of Penwald and Tette Icling. As a young
man, Guthlac led a gang that roamed the country pillaging in traditional
manner. He became converted to Christianity in 697 and joined the monastery of
Repton (south of Derby). After studying
there he returned to become a hermit on an inhospitable island <in a hideous
fen of huge bigness> called Crueland, now Crowland. His sister (St) Pega
lived as an anchorite not far away at Peakirk (Pega’s Church). An abbey church
was built at Crowland and dedicated to St Guthlac by k.Aethelbald, a frequent
visitor to the hermit in his lifetime. Hicklings have continued to live in the
Fenlands around Peterborough ever since.
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n 1979 part of a large stone cross was found at the
side of the church at Repton, which had become the royal mausoleum of the
Icling Mercian kings. It represents
king Aethelbald who assumed the title of Rex Britanniae after
defeating the
West Saxons at Somerton in 733. He was buried at Repton in 757 after
being murdered at Seckington, 12 miles away.
This earliest known large-scale representation of a Hickling has been identified as that of king Aethelbald of Mercia (686-757)
After the reign of Offa II, k. 757-756, Rex totius Anglorum patriae, the
supremacy of Mercia declined mainly due to lack of close union between the
Iclings and other constituent tribes. The last recorded royal Icling
descendant, (St) Wystan, was murdered and buried at Repton in 849.
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OURCES: Bede: Historia
Ecclesiastica The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Chronicon ex Chronicis;
Florence of Worcester. William of
Malmesbury. Anglo-Saxon England 14
pp 233-292; M. Biddle & B. Kjolbye-Biddle.1986. Cartulorium Saxonicum Ed.
W.G.Birch; Saint Guthlac; paper read
by Rev Canon Moore; compiled by the Rev E. M. Sanderson 1866. B. Colgrave (ed: 1956), the eighth century Felix’s Life of St Guthlac. History
of Croyland R.Gough 1820. Parochial History of Castor; Richard
Gough 1819. St.Wystan’s Church, Repton. Dr
H.M.Taylor 1989