St Edmund the Martyr

Edmund is a young king whose memory stands partly on firm history and partly on a martyr tradition loved for centuries in England. The certain historical core is that Edmund fought the Danes, was defeated, and was killed. Around that core the fuller later passion grew: the refusal to betray faith and justice, the scourging, the arrows, the beheading, and the noble constancy of the king.

This life retells that tradition, but with reserve, making it clear that the later details do not stand on the same footing as the fact of Edmund's death. That honesty strengthens rather than weakens this life. Edmund remains one of medieval England's most loved royal martyrs, but his story is held in the clear light of what can and cannot be proved.