Death
Even in his final years, Oswiu remained a major figure in Britain. The newly appointed Archbishop of Canterbury, Theodore of Tarsus, came north to meet with him in 669. Bede writes that Oswiu had intended to undertake a pilgrimage to Rome in the company of Bishop Wilfrid. However, he fell ill and died, aged fifty eight, on 15 February 670. His elder son by Queen Eanflæd, Ecgfrith, succeeded him as King of Bernicia, while their younger son, Ælfwine, succeeded Ecgfrith as King of Deira. He was buried at Whitby Abbey, alongside Edwin of Deira. His widow and their daughter Ælflæd were later Abbess of Whitby and were also buried there.
Alcuin, writing about a century after Oswiu's death, describes him as "very just, with equitable laws, unconquered in battle but trustworthy in peace, generous in gifts to the wretched, pious, equitable to all".
Read more about this topic: Oswiu Of Northumbria
Famous quotes containing the word death:
“My verse your virtues rare shall eternize,
And in the heavens write your glorious name.
Where, whenas death shall all the world subdue,
Our love shall live, and later life renew.”
—Edmund Spenser (1552?–1599)
“What I call middle-class society is any society that becomes rigidified in predetermined forms, forbidding all evolution, all gains, all progress, all discovery. I call middle-class a closed society in which life has no taste, in which the air is tainted, in which ideas and men are corrupt. And I think that a man who takes a stand against this death is in a sense a revolutionary.”
—Frantz Fanon (1925–1961)
“To die proudly when it is no longer possible to live proudly. Death freely chosen, death at the right time, brightly and cheerfully accomplished amid children and witnesses: then a real farewell is still possible, as the one who is taking leave is still there; also a real estimate of what one has wished, drawing the sum of one’s life—all in opposition to the wretched and revolting comedy that Christianity has made of the hour of death.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)