MANY years ago, I was allowed to hold in my hands the skull
believed to be that of Edmund Ironside, King of England, son of
Æthelred the Unready, who died - probably murdered - in 1016. The
skull was among the many bones in one of the mortuary chests in
Winchester Cathedral, and it was thought he could
be identified by the wounds to his head. Now that the six chests,
that almost certainly hold the bones of several of those early
kings, including Cnut and his wife, Emma, as well as three bishops,
are being opened again, and more scientifically examined, that
supposed identification could well be proved wrong.
The chests usually stand high on the walls either side of the
high altar, but have been taken down and are currently arrayed in
the Lady chapel. The bones, many of them broken, have been mixed up
since they were thrown about by the parliamentarians who did their
destructive worst in the cathedral in 1642. This time, the bones
will be examined with the minimum of intervention, but certainly
with more accurate results.
Recent carbon dating of some of the fragments has already
confirmed that they are of the late Saxon and early Norman period,
and the chests themselves record their contents as royal: Cynegils,
the earliest king, (d. 643), Cynewulf (d. 786), Ecbert (d. 839),
Æthelwulf (d. 858), Eadred (d. 955), Edmund Ironside (d. 1016),
Cnut (d. 1035), Emma (d. 1052), and William Rufus (d. 1100). The
three bishops are Wini (d. 670), Alfwyn (d. 1047), and Archbishop
Stigand (d.1072).
There was always a question about William Rufus's being in one
of the chests, as the anonymous black tomb in the middle of the
choir has long been believed to be his.
A great deal of the earliest history of England is in
Winchester, and the results of this new and detailed examination of
the bones will be awaited with enormous interest. It should
certainly confirm the dates when the individuals lived, their sex,
their age at death, and some of their physical characteristics.
"This is an exciting moment for the cathedral, when we seem
poised to discover that history has indeed safeguarded the mortal
remains of some of the early Saxon kings who became the first
monarchs of a united England," the Dean, the Very Revd James
Atwell, says. It may establish Winchester as the first formal
national mausoleum.