Editing Æthelred of Mercia (section)

==Abdication and final years==
Osthryth was murdered in 697, for reasons unknown; according to Bede the murderers were "her own people, the Mercian chieftains".<ref name=Bede_V_24>Bede, ''Ecclesiastical History'', V, 24, p.&nbsp;327.</ref> Bede records that Peada's death, forty years earlier, stemmed from "the treachery, it is said, of his own wife";<ref name=Bede_III_24>Bede, ''Ecclesiastical History'', III, 24, p.&nbsp;185.</ref> Peada's wife was Ealhflæd, Osthryth's sister. Hence Osthryth's murder may have been in revenge for Peada's assassination,<ref name=Kirby_126-7/> though it has also been interpreted more directly as a sign of continuing hostility between Northumbria and Mercia.<ref name=ODNB>Williams, "Æthelred"</ref><ref name=CM390>Collins & McClure, ''Ecclesiastical History of the English People'', p.&nbsp;390., n.&nbsp;127.</ref> Osthryth was buried at [[Bardney Abbey|Bardney]] in Lindsey, the monastery where, at her urging, the relics of her uncle, Oswald of Northumbria, were kept and revered,<ref name=Kirby_126-7/><ref name=Bede_III_11>Bede, ''Ecclesiastical History'', III, 11, p.&nbsp;160.</ref> though evidence of resistance at Bardney to the cult of Oswald is also indicative of the poor relations between the two kingdoms.<ref name=CM390/>

In 704, Æthelred abdicated to become a monk and abbot at Bardney, leaving the kingship to his nephew [[Coenred of Mercia|Coenred]].<ref name=Yorke_111>Yorke, ''Kings and Kingdoms'', p.&nbsp;111.</ref>  Seventh century Mercian rulers often patronised religious establishments outside the Mercian heartlands, perhaps as a way of gaining support in outlying provinces.  Æthelred's and Osthryth's interest in Bardney is consistent with this pattern.  The encouragement of the cult of royal saints in areas beyond the central Mercian lands also seems to have been a deliberate policy, and both Æthelred and Osthryth were later revered as saints at Bardney.<ref name=Yorke_109-10>Yorke, ''Kings and Kingdoms'', pp.&nbsp;109–110</ref>  It appears that Æthelred continued to have influence in the kingdom after his abdication: a passage in Stephen of Ripon's ''[[Vita Sancti Wilfrithi|Life of Wilfrid]]'' shows Æthelred summoning Coenred to him and advising him to make peace with Wilfrid.<ref name=Yorke_111/><ref name=AoB169>Eddius Stephanus, ''Life of Wilfrid'', in ''Age of Bede'', pp.&169–170.</ref>  The date of Æthelred's death is not recorded; though it is known that he was buried at Bardney.<ref name=Swanton_42>Swanton, ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'', ''sub anno'' 716, p.&nbsp;42.</ref>

Æthelred had at least one son, [[Ceolred of Mercia|Ceolred]]. According to the thirteenth-century ''[[Chronicon Abbatiae de Evesham]]'', Ceolred was not the son of Osthryth, although it does not name Ceolred's mother, and in the view of the historian [[Ann Williams (historian)|Ann Williams]] this may mean that Æthelred remarried after Osthryth's death. However, Susan Kelly states that Osthryth was "most likely (though not certainly)" Ceolred's mother. Ceolred succeeded to the throne in 709, after Coenred abdicated in 709 to go to Rome on pilgrimage.<ref name=ODNB/><ref name=Kirby_128>Kirby, ''Earliest English Kings'', p.&nbsp;128.</ref><ref>Kelly, "Osthryth"</ref> One version of the regnal lists for Mercia shows a king named [[Ceolwald of Mercia|Ceolwald]] reigning after Ceolred, and it is possible that Ceolwald, if he existed, was also a son of Æthelred's.<ref name=Yorke_111/>