Saint Kenelm (786-17 July 811), also spelled Cynehelm, was the son of King Coenwulf of Mercia, co-king of Mercia from 798 to 811 AD, and a Christian martyr.
Biography[]
Cynehelm Coenwulfing (better known by the Brythonic spelling "Kenelm") was born in 786, the son of King Coenwulf of Mercia and the brother of Quendryda and Burgenhilda. His father "hallowed" Kenelm to the throne by 798 AD, when Pope Leo III sent a letter to Coenwulf identifying the 12-year-old as "King Kenelm". His sister Quendryda envied her younger brother Cynehelm as the heir to Mercia, so she conspired with her brother's tutor and guardian (and her lover) Askobert to assassinate Kenelm so that she could inherit the throne. The night before going on a hunting trip to Worcestershire with Askobert, Kenelm had a dream in which he climbed a tree and saw three quarters of his kingdom bow to him, while one quarter chopped down the tree, causing Kenelm to transform into a white bird and fly away to safety. When Kenelm told this to a soothsayer, she wept and prophesied that Kenelm was destined to die.
During the ensuing hunt, Kenelm decided to rest under a tree, and Askobert began to dig the boy's grave and prepare to murder him. Kenelm then woke and warned Askobert that he would not succeed in killing him there, as he would be killed in another spot, and, to prove his prophecy, he stuck a stick into the ground, causing it to instantly take root and flower, and eventually turn into an ash tree. Askobert, unperturbed, took Kenelm into the Clent Hills (south of Birmingham) as Kenelm sang the Te Deum hymn, and Askobert proceeded to behead Kenelm and bury him where he fell. Shortly after, Quendryda and Askobert were said to have died wretched, and Kenelm was interred at Winchcombe in Gloucestershire. He is venerated as a saint in Roman Catholicism, Anglicanism, and Eastern Orthodoxy.