MARTYRED KING

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 105, 28 January 1931, Page 9

MARTYRED KING

Bones Discovered in English Abbey

ST. EDWARD’S REMAINS

By Telegraph—Press Association-Copyright.

London, January 26.

The remains of the Saxon King, Edward the Martyr, who was murdered at Corfe Castle by his stepmother Elfrida in 979, has been found in Shaftesbury Abbey. An empty tomb was found in 1861, but records showed that the coffiu of the martyr had been removed to a secret place about the time of the dissolution of monasteries by the abbess and nuns of the Abbey. His resting place was not traced until a landowner, while uncovering a wall on the site of the Abbey, found a lead casket 24 by 9 inches, containing bones. Manifestly it had been secreted in great haste. Everything suggests that the remains are those of the most famous of English royal martyrs.

St. Edward, the Martyr, is thought to have been born in 963. He was murdered in 979. He was King of the West Saxons, and son of King Edgar, whom he. succeeded in 975. He was elected by the Witan through the influence of St. Dunstan, Primate of England, in spite of the measures taken by his stepmother, Elfrida, to secure the crown for her son Aethelred. He was murdered by her order, and was succeeded by his step-brother. In 980 his body was brought to Shaftesbury in Dorsetshire-one of the oldest of English centres of population.