governed part of it, to receive the tonsure, and to enter a monastery that he had founded, said to have been Bedrichsworth, the later Bury St. Edmunds. After some time the Mercians, under their king Penda [q. v.], invaded East-Anglia, and the people, finding themselves unable to repel the invasion, besought Sigebert to lead them; for he had beforetime been a strenuous warrior. Sorely against his will they took him from his monastery and made him march with them at the head of a fine army; but, mindful of his profession, he would not carry any arms save a rod. He and Egrice were slain, and his army was totally defeated, about 637. Bishop Stubbs notes that Pits says that some letters of Sigebert to Desiderius, bishop of Cahors (d. 655), were preserved at St. Gallen, and the statement is repeated elsewhere. There can, however, be no doubt that it is founded on a confusion between the East-Anglian king and Sigibert, king of Austrasia (reigned 638–56), two letters from whom to Desiderius are printed by Canisius in his ‘Antiquæ Lectiones,’ i. 646, 649. On the ground that Sigebert founded a school in East-Anglia, it was hotly debated between the champions of the antiquity of Oxford and of Cambridge in the sixteenth century whether he was the founder of the university of Cambridge.
[Bede's Hist. Eccles. ii. 15, iii. 18; Will. Malm. Gesta Regum, i. c. 97, Gesta Pontiff. p. 147 (both Rolls Ser.); Liber Eliensis, i. c. 1 (Anglia Chris. Soc.); Dugdale's Monasticon, iii. 98; Bale's Script. Brit. Cat. cent. i. 78; Pits, De Angliæ Script. p. 108; Tanner's Bibl. Brit. p. 672; T. Caius's Vindiciæ, pp. 296 sq.; Parker's Early Hist. of Oxford, pp. 25–37, 311 (Oxf. Hist. Soc.).]
SIGEBERT or SEBERT, called the Good (fl. 653), king of the East-Saxons, was son of Sigebald, who was descended from Seaxa, the brother of Sebert or Saberet (d. 616?) [q. v.], king of the East-Saxons. He succeeded his kinsman Sigebert or Sebert, called the Little (fl. 626) [q. v.], probably through the support of Oswy [q. v.], king of the Northumbrians. At Oswy's persuasion he became a Christian, and was baptised, together with his followers, by Bishop Finan [q. v.] at a place called At-Wall, near the Roman wall, in or about 653. In accordance with his request that teachers might be sent to his kingdom to convert his people, who had remained heathen since their apostasy after the death of Sebert, in or about 616, Oswy summoned Cedd or Cedda [q. v.] from the land of the Middle-Angles, and sent him with another priest to preach to the East-Saxons. They were successful in their mission, and Cedd, having been consecrated bishop of the East-Saxons, made Ythanceaster—said to have been near Malden and Tilaburg (Tilbury), both in Essex—centres for his work, which, Bishop Stubbs remarks, makes it probable that London lay outside Sigebert's kingdom, and was under Mercian rule, as it certainly was a little later (Bede, Hist. Eccl. iii. c. 7). The story of the rebuke that Sigebert received from Cedd, and the bishop's prophecy, has been told elsewhere [see under Cedd or Cedda, Saint]; but it may be added that the two brothers, his kinsmen, who slew Sigebert, declared that they had done so because they were indignant with him for sparing his enemies and bearing injuries placidly—probably referring to the king's humiliation before Cedd. Bede dwells on the fact that his death was caused by his obedience to Christian principles, and highly commends his piety. The date of his death, which is not known, has been assumed to be 660 (Hist. Eccl. ed. Stevenson, p. 209; Monumenta Hist. Brit. pp. 195–6). But Bishop Stubbs thinks that it probably occurred before the battle of Winwæd in 655; and if Sigebert's successor, Swithelm, was baptised on his accession, which from Bede's account seems likely, he is undoubtedly right. On the other hand, Bede says that Sigebert's death took place a short time after his baptism.
[Bede's Hist. Eccles. iii. c. 22; Mon. Hist. Brit. pp. 629, 637; Will. Malm. Gesta Regum, i. c. 98; Dict. Chr. Biogr. art. ‘Sigebert’ (6), by Bishop Stubbs.]
SIGEBERT (d. 756?), king of the West-Saxons, son of Sigeric, an under-king of the West-Saxons, succeeded his kinsman Cuthred [q. v.] in 754 or 755. He was a bad ruler, for he was proud, cruel, and corrupt. At the beginning of the second year of his reign his nobles and people rose against him, and he was deposed by a formal act of the West-Saxon witan, who chose Cynewulf [q. v.] to reign in his stead. For a while he was allowed to retain Hampshire, where he was supported by the ealdorman Cumbran. As, however, he did not amend his ways, Cumbran remonstrated with him in the name of his people, and was in consequence unjustly put to death by him. This act lost him Hampshire. He fled, and was pursued by Cynewulf. He took shelter in the forest of Andred, and was there at Privets-flood (Privet is in Hampshire, near Petersfield), perhaps in 756, slain with a spear by a swineherd of Cumbran in revenge for his master's death. Many years later Sigebert's brother Cyneheard slew Cynewulf.
