H4017  - Kingdom of East Anglia, Eadmund (855-870), Silver Penny, 1.25g., Ipswich mint (?), moneyer Eadmund, +EADMVND REX AN, in centre A, rev., small cross with a pellet in each angle within a circle, +EADMVND MONE, (N.456; S.954), pierced in centre  otherwise good silver, toned, good very fine.  $695 SOLD

Eadmund was the last king of the independent Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of East Anglia. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records that in A.D. 870: “[the Vikings] went across Mercia into East Anglia, and took winter-quarters at Thetford; and in that year St. Edmund the king fought against them, and the Danish took the victory, and killed the king and conquered all that land…” The Chronicle goes on to name the Viking leaders who slew the king as Ivar and Ubba. A later medieval source records that he was tied to a tree and filled with arrows.  This act took place at a town called Beadoriceswyrthe, where he is believed to buried and where a cult grew up around the canonized king and which is still today known as Bury St. Edmunds. The cult was begun by the Danish settlers who settled in the lands they conquered and coins were even struck by them in the name of St. Edmund.