WHEN he awoke, he thought on the old kings who were of yore, who thinking on miserable death, and the wretched end of sinful life, forsook this world;* and the great wealth which they once possessed, he saw all on a sudden vanish; and he saw his own life daily hasten and hurry to an end. Then was he suddenly so excited inwardly with godly fear, that he vowed to God, if he would spare him till the morrow, that he would be his servant.
When the darkness of night was gone, and it was day, he arose and signed himself with the mark of Christ’s rood.* Then bade he his companions that they should find them another captain and leader of their company. Then they all bowed to him, and begged him that he never would perform the things which he had in words expressed. He however cared not for their words. When he was four and twenty years old, he forsook all the pomps of the world, and set all his hope on Christ.
Æthelred I of Mercia (r. 675–704), a son of King Penda, resigned the crown in 704 and retired to a monastery at Bardney in Lincolnshire. His nephew Cœnred, whom he adopted ahead of his own son Ceolred, followed him on the throne, but in 709 he too abdicated and emigrated to Rome where he was tonsured as a monk. Cœnred’s mother Ermenilda retired to a convent. King Ceolwulf (?695-765), King of Northumbria from 729 to 737, retired to the monastery at Lindisfarne where he remained for nearly thirty years.
* Rood is the Old English word (rōd, ‘pole’) for the cross of Christ. Felix means that Guthlac made the sign of the cross upon himself as a gesture of commitment.