- [SIDENOTE: ST. OSWALD]
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Kirkstead Chapel.
sainted Oswald, the Northumbrian king who had defeated Cædwalla at Hevenfield in 635 and was himself killed in battle by Penda at Maserfield in 642—had before her marriage brought the relics of her uncle in 672 to Bardney, where they became the centre of attraction for pilgrims, and St. Oswald's name as patron was added to those of St. Peter and St. Paul to whom the abbey was dedicated. Osfrida herself having been murdered by the Danes in 697, was buried here, and Æthelred, who in 701 founded Evesham Abbey, following the example of half-a-dozen Anglian and Saxon kings, gave up his throne after a reign of thirty years and entered Bardney as a monk in 704. In the quaint words of the chronicle he "was shorn a religious," i.e., adopted the tonsure, and died twelve years later, after ruling for four years as Abbot of Bardney. One of the frescoes in Friskney church represents him resigning his crown to become a monk. St. Oswald's arm, which had been preserved in St. Peter's church at Bamborough, and which never withered, was afterwards transferred to Peterborough Abbey, according
