This is me, Eccles

This is me, Eccles
This is me, Eccles

Sunday 24 April 2022

World Cup of Patron Saints of England

A bit of a new venture here - usually we go for Bad Hymns, Bad Cardinals, Ugly Churches, Instruments from Hell, etc. (and some of these contests will be due for a repeat soon, as they were last held in 2018). But here we're going for something GOOD.

I have 32 candidates to be patron saint of England. All are English except George, Augustine of Canterbury, and Joseph of Arimathea. Will George hold onto his title, or will someone else be more popular? The Twitter poll begins tomorrow.

George and dragon

Very few of our entrants have slain dragons.

Meanwhile a plug for an old piece I wrote about St George.

Our candidates (did I forget anyone obvious?) are:
Aelfflaed of Whitby
Aethelbert of Kent
Aidan
Alban
Aldeberge of Kent
Augustine
Bede
Boniface
Chad
Cuthbert
Dunstan
Edmund
Edmund Campion
Edward, king and martyr
Edward the Confessor
Etheldreda
George
Gilbert of Sempringham
Hilda
Hugh of Lincoln
John Fisher
John Henry Newman
Joseph of Arimathea
Margaret Clitherow
Nicholas Owen
Odo of Canterbury
Patrick
Swithin
Thomas Becket
Thomas More
Wilfrid of York
Wulfstan
Newman

"A dragon outside, you say? On my way..."


N.B. It seems that the hashtag #WCPSE has also been used by the Western Canada Paranormal & Spiritual Expo, but I am sure they won't mind. They probably saw it coming anyway.

11 comments:

  1. St. Herbert of Derwentwater. Hermit priest of England and friend of St. Cuthbert. Wonderful story!

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  2. Was Fiacre English, before his move to France?
    Also, my youngest grandchild is named for St. Isan, who was a friend of St. Patrick and also preached throughout England. Hard to believe there are so many saints from the northerners. We weren't all barbarians, after all!

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  3. Alban. As Augustine, Bede, Becket, and Campion would have agreed.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anselm, perhaps? (Not English of course, but worthy of consideration, I think.)

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anselm, perhaps? (Not English of course, but worthy of consideration, I think.)

    ReplyDelete
  6. The only obvious candidates you've missed, as far as I can tell, are :

    Alfred the Great
    Edgar the Peaceful
    Mildred/Mildrith

    ReplyDelete
  7. G K Chesterton; just a minor detail of Vox Populi ...

    ReplyDelete
  8. Mrs. Trellis from North Wales ?

    ReplyDelete