#king sighere

St Osyth’s Day

Source: Orthodox Christianity website

St Osyth was a seventh century Christian noblewoman of royal Mercian stock who married King Sighere on the condition that she could remain chaste. Remarkably Sighere agreed to these terms and gave his wife sufficient funds to endow a monastery at Chich in Essex where she spent much of her life. Legend has it that Sighere tired of the no-sex deal he had signed up to and began to visit Chich to force himself on the Queen. Osyth fended off her husband’s advances with the help of a giant white stag who turned up miraculously to drive Sighere away when he was getting too amorous. Sadly this legend is slightly contradicted by the fact that Osyth did actually bear the King at least one child, a son.

Poor Osyth was eventually killed when, possibly very early Scandinavian, pirates attacked the monastery at Chich, sacked it and beheaded Osyth. Nothing daunted, the saint then carried her head three miles from the site of her murder to indicate where she wished to be buried. Her shrine remains at the priory at Chich, now renamed St Osyth’s.

Today is the feast of the martyr St Osith of Chich (d. c.700) (also Osyth, Osgyth and Ositha). An obscure Anglo-Saxon princess, she was married to Sighere, King of the East Saxons (c. 664-683) in a bid to consolidate Christianity in Essex, whose state was precarious owing to Sighere’s apostasy. St Osith founded a convent at Chich (now the town of ‘St Osyth’ in Essex), died there and was almost immediately venerated as a saint. Little else reliable is known of her life. St Osith and Sighere had a son, 'Offa of Essex', who became King of the East Saxons, but he abdicated in 709 in order to travel to Rome. Offa spent the rest of his life as a monk in a Roman monastery.

St Osith’s late legend includes many picturesque details. It was claimed that she was a virgin despite having a son. It was said that a large and aggressive white stag appeared whenever Sighere attempted to consummate their marriage. St Osith's martyrdom was attributed to pirates who grew violent because she refused to commit idolatry. A spring welled up where her severed head fell and it was believed that St Osith carried her detached head to a church three miles distant, immediately after her martyrdom, much to the surprise of the pagan pirates.