Edmund Ironside, the son of Ethelred the Redeless is recorded to have been buried near his grandfather Edgar at Glastonbury Abbey but his bones may have been relocated to Winchester by his successor, Canute, who married his stepmother.Īlfred the Great, (reigned 875-899) and his son Edward the Elder (899-924) were also buried at the Old Minster but were later removed to Hyde Abbey, a section of pelvis, exhumed from an unmarked grave in the grounds of St Bartholomew, the medieval church where it is believed Alfred was reburied in the nineteenth century and stored in a cardboard box in Winchester museum has been dated by radiocarbon tests to between 8 and may have belonged to King Alfred or Edward the Elder. An inscription on a stone, dating to the twelfth century and now set in the stone bench beneath the south presbytery screen of the cathedral reads 'Hic iacet Edmundus Rex Eþeldredi regis filius' (Here lies King Edmund, son of King Ethelred). However neither the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle or Asser's Life of Alfred mentions this supposed son. He is claimed by Thomas Rudborne in his 'Historia Major', to be the eldest son of Alfred the Great who was crowned in his father's lifetime but died in infancy. His date of birth has been omitted, he is thought not to be Edmund the Elder, who was buried at Glastonbury Abbey in Somerset.

The identity of King Edmund, also buried in the chests is unknown. Its also believed the chests contain the remains of the Anglo-Saxon Bishops Wini (died 670) and Alfwyn (d.1047) and Archbishop Stigand (d.1072). Canute and Emma's son Hardicanute (1040-1042) is now buried in the wall of the choir screen, rather than in a mortuary chest. These include the purported remains of Cynegils, the first Christian king of Wessex (reigned 611-643), Cynewulf, King of Wessex (643-672), King Egbert (802-839), the first King of all England, and his son Ethelwulf (839-856), the father of Alfred the Great, King Edred (946-955) the grandson of King Alfred, Edred's nephew King Edwy (955-959), Canute, King of England (1016-1035), Norway and Denmark (d.1035) and his wife Emma of Normandy (also queen consort to the Saxon king Ethelred 'the Redeless'), and the Norman king, William Rufus (1087-1100), who was killed by a stray arrow during a hunting expedition in the New Forest in 1100. The contents of six mortuary chests, kept at the cathedral for centuries, contain the remains of 11 or 12 people are to be analysed. An exciting new project at Winchester Cathedral plans to examine the remains of several of England's Anglo-Saxon and Danish kings.

The Killing Bone by Peter Saxon