Edmund was crowned king of East Anglia at fifteen, in 855 or 856. For fourteen years he ruled in peace, fostering Christian education and church-building. In November 869 the Great Heathen Army of the Vikings under Ivar the Boneless and Ubba landed at Thetford in his kingdom.
Edmund met them in battle but was defeated and captured. The Vikings offered him his life if he would renounce Christ. He refused. Tradition records that he was tied to a tree, scourged, shot full of arrows, and finally beheaded on November 20, 869.
His head was thrown into the woods of Eglesden to deny him Christian burial. His followers, searching, were called to it by the cry of a wolf: 'Hic, hic, hic' — the wolf was found cradling the head between its paws and gave it to them. He is iconographically depicted ever since with arrows in his body and a wolf at his side.
His shrine at Bury St Edmunds became, after Westminster Abbey, the most important pilgrimage site in pre-Norman England. Edmund — not George — was the original patron saint of England, until Edward III in 1348 transferred the title to St. George. Calls have been made in recent decades to restore his patronage; he remains the patron of East Anglia.