found communities at Tilaburg (probably East Tilbury) and Ithancester (almost certainly Bradwell-on-Sea). These activities brought about an extension of the authority of the church of Lindisfarne into the south, which has been regarded as "redolent of an opportunistic Bernician colonisation of the region". Murder Bede relates how Sigeberht had become a pious king practising Christian forgiveness, but was soon murdered for his new attitude. The perpetrators were his own kinsmen (propinqui), two unnamed brothers who were angry with the king "because he was too ready to pardon his enemies". Bishop Cedd had excommunicated one of the brothers for being unlawfully married and forbade anyone to dine with him or enter his house. Disregarding the bishop's words, however, Sigeberht accepted an invitation from the brothers to enjoy hospitality at their house. When he happened to meet Cedd on the road, he prostrated before him and asked forgiveness, but Cedd prophesied that the king would die in the house for his disobedience. Bede's concluding verdict is that "the death of this religious king was such that it not only atoned for his offence but even increased his merit; for it came about as a result of his piety and his observance of Christ's command." Whatever the moral message Bede may have intended to convey, the political circumstances suggest a somewhat different scenario. With Oswiu's expulsion, the Bernician grip on East Saxon affairs seems to have slipped away and so when Sigeberht's successor, Swithhelm, son of Seaxbald, needed a candidate to stand sponsor at his baptism, he turned to the king of the East Anglians. A change of loyalty or political affiliations among the East Saxon ruling elite may therefore help explain the context for Sigeberht's assassination. Barbara Yorke even raises the possibility that Swithhelm was in some way accessory to the murder and that he and his brother Swithfrith were the two brothers portrayed by Bede. The date of Sigeberht's death is unknown, though at the very least, it must have occurred sometime before 664, by which time Swithhelm was dead. References Sources III.22, pp. 280–5. Higham, N.J. The Convert Kings. Power and Religious Affiliation in Early Anglo-Saxon England. Manchester, 1997. Kirby, D.P. The Earliest English Kings. London, 1991. Yorke, Barbara. "The Kingdom of the East Saxons." Anglo-Saxon England 14 (1985): 1-36. Yorke, Barbara. Kings and Kingdoms of Early Anglo-Saxon England. London, 1990. External links 660 deaths Sigeberth II of Essex 7th-century