Among those whom we know to have been buried within the monastery are Merewald, brother of Wulphere. Cyneheard, brother of the King of the West Saxons. Æthelbald, King of the Mercians, “slain at Seccandun (Seckington, near Tamworth), and his body lies at Hreopandun” (_Anglo-Saxon Chron._) under date 755. Wiglaf or Withlaf, another King of Mercia, and his grandson Wistan (St. Wystan), murdered by his cousin Berfurt at Wistanstowe in 850 (see p. 15). After existing for over 200 years the monastery was destroyed by the Danes in the year 874. “In this year the army of the Danes went from Lindsey (Lincolnshire) to Hreopedun, and there took winter quarters,” (_Anglo-Saxon Chron._), and as Ingulph relates “utterly destroyed that most celebrated monastery, the most sacred mausoleum of all the Kings of Mercia.” For over two hundred years it lay in ruins, till, probably, the days of Edgar the Peaceable (958-75) when a church was built on the ruins, and dedicated to St. Wystan. When Canute was King (1016-1035) he transferred the relics of St. Wystan to Evesham Abbey, where they rested till the year 1207, when, owing to the fall of the central tower which smashed the shrine and relics, a portion of them was granted to the Canons of Repton. (_see Life of St. Wystan, p. 16._) In Domesday Book Repton is entered as having a Church with _two_ priests, which proves the size and importance of the church and parish in those early times. Algar, Earl of Mercia, son of Leofric, and Godiva, was the owner then, but soon after, it passed into the hands of the King, eventually it was restored to the descendants of Algar, the Earls of Chester. Matilda, widow of Randulph, Earl of Chester, with the consent of her son Hugh, enlarged the church, and founded the Priory, both of which she granted to the Canons of Calke, whom she transferred to Repton in the year 1172. CHAPTER III. REPTON’S SAINTS (GUTHLAC & WYSTAN). “The sober recital of historical fact is decked with legends of singular beauty, like artificial flowers adorning the solid fabric of the Church. Truth and fiction are so happily blended that we cannot wish such holy visions to be removed out of our sight,” thus wrote Bishop Selwyn of the time when our Repton Saints lived, and in order that their memories may be kept green, the following account has been written. ST. GUTHLAC. At the command of Æthelbald, King of the Mercians, Felix, monk of Crowland, first bishop of the East Angles, wrote a life of St. Guthlac. He derived his information from Wilfrid, abbot of Crowland, Cissa, a priest, and Beccelm, the companion of Guthlac, all of whom knew him.