Hereswith

Hereswith or Hereswitha (Old English: Hǣreswīþ), also spelt Hereswithe, Hereswyde or Haeresvid, was a 7th-century Northumbrian saint. She married into the East Anglian royal dynasty and afterwards retired to Gaul to lead a religious life. Hereswith's sister was Saint Hilda (or Hild), founder of the monastery at Whitby. Details of her life and identity come from Bede's Historia Ecclesiastica, the Anglian collection and the Lives of Edwin of Northumbria and Hilda of Whitby.

The Northumbrian royal descent of Hereswith is traced from Edwin of Northumbria (who ruled from about 616 to 632), the son of Ælle, King of the Northumbrian kingdom of Deira. Hereswith was the daughter of Edwin's nephew, Hereric. After Ælle's death, his heir Edwin was sent into exile by the rulers of the northern Northumbrian kingdom of Bernicia. He had at least two siblings, including a sister named Acha, and was Hereswith's grandfather on her father's side. Edwin was received in exile at the court of the powerful Welsh ruler Cadfan ap Iago of Gwynedd and in childhood he was the companion of Cadfan's son Cadwallon.

During the 590s, Æthelfrith became the most powerful ruler in Northumbria. Following the battle of Degsastan in 603, he became sufficiently powerful to absorb Deira within his rule. In his second marriage Æthelfrith married Edwin's sister Acha. Hereric married Breguswith and had two daughters, Hereswith and her younger sister Hild (born around 613). Hereric was exiled and forced to seek protection in the British kingdom of Elmet, then ruled by Ceretic. During Hereric's exile, Edwin lived at the court of Cearl of Mercia, where he married Cearl's daughter and had two sons. Here he fell under the broader protection of the southern English kingdoms whose overlord was Aethelberht of Kent (ruled from about 560 to 616). During the latter part of Æthelberht's rule, power gravitated towards Rædwald of East Anglia, who had signalled his intention to succeed to the dominion of Æthelberht by receiving baptism in Kent from the Roman mission of Saint Augustine.

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