The church is dedicated to _St. Oswald_, not the archbishop of York who died in 992 and was buried at Worcester, but the sainted king of Northumbria who died in battle, slain by Penda, King of Mercia, at Maserfield, A.D. 642. His head, arms and hands were cut off, and set up as trophies, but were afterwards kept as holy relics, the hands at Bamborough, while one arm was for a time at Peterborough. The head was at Bamborough, and later at Lindisfarne in St. Cuthbert’s Cathedral, where the monks placed it in St. Cuthbert’s coffin. He had died in 687, and this coffin, when the Danes pillaged the cathedral, was taken away by the monks to Cumberland and carried by them from place to place in their flight, according to St. Cuthbert’s dying wish; and from 690 to 998, when it finally rested in the cathedral, it was kept in the coffin which is now in Durham Library. For 100 years, 783 to 893, it rested at Chester, and then passed to Ripon, and so to Durham, where it was enshrined and visited by hundreds of pilgrims. The marks of their feet are plain to see still. In 1104 the coffin was opened, and St. Oswald’s head seen in it. In 1542 the shrine being defaced, the body was buried beneath the pavement. In 1826 it was again opened, and some relics then taken out are now in the Cathedral Library—a ring, a cup and patten, the latter about six inches square, of oak with a thin plate of silver over it, and a stole. This was beautifully worked by the nuns at Winchester 1,000 years ago, and intended for Wulfstan, but on his death given by them to King Athelstan, and by him to St. Cuthbert’s followers. [Sidenote: ST. CUTHBERT’S TOMB]