Royal Historical Society president William Hunt favored the first theory and added that, if true, it would mean that Oshere was a nephew of Queen Osthryth, wife of King Æthelred of Mercia.
[1][6] Details of the family appear in a letter Ecgburg wrote to Bishop Wynfrith (Boniface) c. 716, lamenting the death of her brother and the long absence of her sister.
Ecgburg's letter to Boniface reveals a cultivated intellect, leading Diane Watt to state that she was among the "highly educated women" who corresponded with the bishop.
[10] The historian Patrick Sims-Williams noted her familiarity with the works of classical Greece and Rome and even went so far as to compare her "highly poetic style" to those of Jerome and Paulinus of Nola.
[15] In 693, Oshere, along with his son Æthelheard, granted land to Cuthswith, abbess of Bath[16] who may have been a member of the Mercian royal family or the Hwiccian dynasty.