The assassination of Oswine was not just business though: Oswine was related to Oswiu’s wife, Eanflæd. This produced something of a dilemma for the queen: as a blood relative to Oswine, it was her duty to seek vengeance on his killer: her husband.

Rather than do so, Eanflæd prevailed upon her husband to provide lands for a monastery to be established where the monks would pray for the repose of the soul of her cousin and for the forgiveness of the sins of her husband. Gilling Abbey appears not to have long outlived the king the monks prayed for, being abandoned in 669 following an outbreak of plague.

It was the best solution to a difficult problem – and one that showed how the new religion was able to unpick some of the chains of blood vengeance that bedevilled Anglo-Saxon society.