Excerpt from The Victoria History of the County of Lincoln, Vol. 2

Strong evidence of the feeling of the inhabitants of Lindsey against their annexation to Northumbria is shown in the attitude of the monks of Bardney towards Oswald, king and martyr, who te-conquered this district after it had fallen to Mercia on the death of Edwin in 633. After the death of Oswald in battle fighting against the heathen power of Mercia (bede, Err]. Hid. Lib. Iii, cap. Vii), his niece Osthryda, who by her marriage with Ethelred of Mercia for a time united the warring dynasties, desired to bestow on the monastery of Bardney, which she and her husband much loved, the remains of her sainted uncle, then regarded as a martyr to the cause of the faith. But the monks of Bardney refused to admit the waggon when it arrived before the gate of the monastery with its sacred burden, alleging that Oswald though a holy man had en deavoured to establish an alien yoke over them, and the relics were left outside in the open air with only the shelter of: tent to cover them. During the night, however, miraculous proof was afforded of the king's sanctity. A pillar oflight reaching up to heaven, which was seen by all the inhabitants of Lindsey, stood over the wagon, and in the morning the monks, convinced, intreated that the holy relics might bedeposited among them. They were accordingly washed and placed in a shrine, over which was suspended a banner of purple and gold symbolical of the royalty of the saint. (ibid. Iii, cap. Xi.) Many were the miracles reported to be performed there, but during the Danish invasion, which swept away Christian evidences in the county, the relics were carried 08' and deposited at Gloucester. The murder of Queen Osthryda by the nobles of Lindsey (ibid. Lib. V, cap. Xxiv. And Flora. Ilf'igorn. I, 45) is another proof of the dislike in the district to Northumbrian rule. Ethelred, like many another Mercian prince, resigned his kingdom in 704, and retired to the abbey of Bardney, of which he died abbot in 716. Ibid. I, 46 - 9.

Local tradition here still preserves the name of St. Chad. In 971 King Edgar made a grant to Ethelwold, bishop of Winchester, of land at Barrow on Humberto be assigned to the monastery of Peter borough, in his deed recalling that it had formerly been in the possession of St. Chad before it was wasted by the Danes. Carr. Saxon, iii, 566.

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