Edmund the Martyr

Edmund the Martyr (c. 841 – 869), later venerated as Saint Edmund, was King of East Anglia from about 855 until his death. He was succeeded by Æthelred II.
==Biography==
===Reign and death===
In 865, the Great Heathen Army invaded East Anglia as part of the Viking expansion into England. By the following year, Edmund had a truce in place with Ivarr the Boneless and Halfdan Ragnarsson. He once sent two heralds to speak with them and attempt a conversion, but Ivarr killed one of them and scared the other. Fearing his life, the remaining herald passed the message that Edmund thanked them for abiding by the truce and gifted them 2000 pounds of silver as a sign of respect and hope that the peace would continue. Ivarr sent him away, asking instead for a hundred strong horses in 10 days.Assassin's Creed: Valhalla – Blood Brothers – The Boneless
Four years later, emissaries met with Edmund and demanded that he renounce Christianity and accept Danelaw as the new law of the land. Edmund refused to recant his beliefs and challenged his aggressors to do their worst. Furious, the Danes tied him up and beat him,Assassin's Creed: Valhalla – Edmund's Arrows then shot him so full of arrows he was "entirely covered with their missiles, like the bristles of a hedgehog,"Assassin's Creed: Valhalla – Blood Brothers – The Dust Settles before ultimately beheading the body. Edmund's steadfastness in willingly dying for his faith earned him the title of martyr.
Following his death, Edmund was buried in the church crypt in the village of King's Bury near Theotford.Assassin's Creed: Valhalla – Raising Iron
===Legacy===
By 873, Ivarr the Boneless claimed personal credit for having killed Edmund,Assassin's Creed: Valhalla – King Killer but this could not be proven, as there were conflicting claims that Ubba had killed the king instead,Assassin's Creed: Valhalla – Geirmund's Saga – Chapter 9 though Ubba never challenged Ivarr on his boasts. 
During the next following years, the shieldmaiden Eivor Varinsdottir of the Raven Clan learned of the king's death after opportunistically taking the arrows embedded in his throne. A local Anglo-Saxon woman informed her of the weapons' history and offered to buy them back for her own study, which Eivor accepted.
By 879, his lands were given to the newly baptized Guthrum by King Alfred, although the lands were not Alfred's to give.Discovery Tour: Viking Age – Learnings: The Gift of East Anglia
==Behind the scenes==
Although tradition holds that Edmund died in the as-yet unidentified place known as Haegelisdun, a fact upheld in the Assassin's Creed: Valhalla tie-in novel Assassin's Creed: Valhalla – Geirmund's Saga, the Valhalla memory "Edmund's Arrows" instead says that he died in Norwich, pinned to his throne by arrows which were considered holy artifacts after Edmund's later .
==Appearances==
*Echoes of History 
*Assassin's Creed: Valhalla 
*Assassin's Creed: Valhalla – Geirmund's Saga 
*Assassin's Creed: Valhalla – Blood Brothers 
*Discovery Tour: Viking Age
==References==
Category:841 births
Category:869 deaths
Category:Individuals
Category:East Anglians
Category:Anglo-Saxons
Category:Saints
Category:Monarchs of East Anglia
Category:House of East Anglia