Edwin of Northumbria

Exiled in his youth, Edwin won back Northumbria and made it the most powerful kingdom in Britain. Bede tells how he held council on the new religion, and how one of his warriors likened human life to a sparrow's flight across a lighted hall between two nights — the image that decided the assembly. Baptised at York on Easter day 627 by Paulinus, he had the first wooden church built on the site of the future York Minster. He fell on 12 October 633 at Hatfield Chase before Penda, pagan king of Mercia, and Cadwallon of Gwynedd — a Christian in name, Bede writes, but more cruel than a pagan.