Saxon Kings

Winchester Cathedral houses the bones of five Saxon Kings: Cynegils (611-43), Cenwalh (643-72), Egbert (802-39), Ethelwulf (839-58) and Canute and his Queen Emma (1016-35). They are contained in five mortuary chests together with the bones of a couple of early Bishops and the Norman King William II, also known as Rufus (1087-1100). The reason for this mixture is that Cromwell's men opened the chests and hurled the bones at the Cathedral windows to smash them and they were later recovered by locals and replaced in the surviving chests but it was impossible to tell whose bones belonged to whom. King Cynegils was converted to Christianity by St Birinus around 635. Birinus became the first Bishop of Dorchester and towards the end of his life he dedicated the first church in Winchester and his relics were brought to Winchester from Dorchester around 690, although it is believed that they were taken back to Dorchester in the thirteenth century.
Another King who's been much disturbed is Alfred the Great (858-99). He was first buried in the New Minster, the Saxon church which was on the site of the Cathedral. When William the Conqueror started to build the Cathedral, the Saxon church was moved outside the city walls to Hyde Abbey and King Alfred, his wife Lady Ealhswith and their son Edward the Elder were reburied there in 1110. The Abbey was dissolved by Henry VIII and the graves were lost although King Alfred's bones were supposedly recovered and lie in an unmarked grave in the churchyard of St. Benedict's church which is next to the ruins of the Abbey.