Etheldreda – Princess, Queen, Abbess and Saint

Etheldreda’s father Anna, a devout Christian, was King of East Anglia from 637 to 653. Sometime after Anna's first wife died his daughter Æthelburh and his stepdaughter Sæthryth were sent to a nunnery at Faremoutiers in France for their education. Æthelburh became a nun and eventually succeeded the abbess. Sæthryth also became a nun and succeeded her sister as abbess.

Anna married for a second time and had a son Jurmin and three daughters who also eventually became abbesses. The eldest of these daughters was Seaxburh who was born in about 626. She married King Eorconberht of Kent about 2 years after his accession in 640. After his death in 664 she ruled the kingdom until their son Ecgberht was grown, and then, probably about 670, founded a nunnery at Sheppey, endowed it, and settled there with seventy-seven disciples. About 675, in consequence of a dream, she departed from Sheppey, leaving her daughter in her place, and went to Ely, where she succeeded her sister Etheldreda as abbess in 679.

Withburga, the youngest daughter, was not a strong child and was sent to Holkham on the Norfolk coast for the sake of her health. She developed into something of a recluse but she eventually founded a nunnery at East Dereham after the death of her father and became its first Abbess. Withburga died in 743 and was buried at East Dereham but, in 974, she was moved to lie beside her sisters at Ely.

Etheldreda, the middle daughter, was born in 631. Very little is known about her early life apart from that, before she had reached the age of 21, she had decided to give her life to God and become a nun. When she made this decision, and what influenced it, is a matter of speculation.

Etheldreda was an infant when Sigeberht became king of East Anglia and the process of conversion of the population of East Anglia to Christianity began in earnest. She grew up in a Christian household and would have been influenced by Bishop Felix until he died when she was seventeen. She also may have met both the Irish monk named Fursey, who established a monastery at Burgh Castle, and Botolph, who is believed to have founded a monastery at Iken by the Alde estuary. Seven other monasteries had been established in Suffolk by the time Etheldreda was fourteen.

Some historians have suggested that Etheldreda’s decision to become a nun may also have been influenced by contact with two sisters, Hereswith and Hilda. They were related to the Eadwine, the king of Northumbria from 616 to 632. Hereswith married Anna’s brother Æthilric and she might have remained in Suffolk sometime after he was killed in 637. She eventually left England in about 644/5 and took up a religious life in Gall. Her sister Hilda, who was 14 years younger, had been taught by Bishop Aidan of Lindisfarne.

Hilda reputedly came to East Anglia in about 647 in the belief that her sister Hereswith was still there. Hilda stayed for a year before leaving to enter a convent by the River Wear. A year later Aidan appointed Hilda as the second Abbess of Hartlepool Abbey and, in 657, Hilda became the founding abbess of Whitby Abbey. While Hilda was in East Anglia Etheldreda would have been about seventeen and if, as seems likely, the two spent some time together this may have had a strong influence on Etheldreda's decision to become a nun. This decision did not, however, prevent her father arranging for her to marry Tonberht, a prince of an area named South Gyrwe in the southern part of the Fenland.

Etheldreda's Marriages

Etheldreda was 21 when she married Tonberht who was much older than she was. Etheldreda managed to persuade Tonberht to respect her vow of perpetual virginity. He died in 655, only four years into the marriage, but Etheldreda retained the Isle of Ely which she had received from him as a morning gift (one made by a the husband to his wife the morning after the marriage).  Some historians suggest that, after the death of Tonberht, Etheldreda went to live on the Isle of Ely.

In 653 King Anna and his son Jurmin were killed when the Mercian army attacked East Anglia. Anna was succeeded by his brother Æthelhere who formed an alliance with Mercia against Northumbria. Within a year Æthelhere was killed, along with the King of Mercia, in an attack on the Northumbria and Æthelwald, and another brother of Anna, ascended to the throne of East Anglia.

Æthelwald was subservient to Oswy, the King Northumbrian. In 660, to strengthen his position, Æthelwald arranged for his widowed niece Etheldreda (then aged 29) to marry Ecgfrith, Oswy’s 15 year old son. Little is known about Etheldreda's life during the next decade apart from that she refused to consummate the marriage because of her vocation to become a nun. In 670 Oswy died and Ecgfrith and Etheldreda became King and Queen of Northumbria. Etheldreda continued to insist on remaining a virgin so Ecgfrith asked Wilfred, the Bishop of Northumbria, to intercede and to persuade her to give him an heir. The accounts of the subsequent events are varied but the key facts are clear. In 672 Wilfred persuaded Ecgfrith to allow Etheldreda to enter the monastery at Coldingham, near Berwick. A year later, after being warned that Ecgfrith was about to send men to seize her, Etheldreda fled south accompanied by two nuns.

The Founding of the Double Monastery at Ely

Etheldreda and her companions made their way to her own estate on the Isle of Ely and, in 673, she founded a double monastery there. It is generally presumed that the resources needed to establish these monasteries were provided by Etheldreda’s East Anglian relatives but the only evidence of this comes from a later period. The double monastery and all their records were destroyed during the Danish invasion. It is not until 970, when the double monastery was re-founded, that mention is made of them being endowed with the Liberty of St Etheldreda. The Liberty encompassed the former Royal Hall at Rendlesham and the royal pagan ship burials at Sutton Hoo and Snape. It was thus the heartland of the pagan Kingdom of East Anglia. The decision to grant away this area to the monasteries may thus have been made in 673 to distance the, then Christian, royal family from its pagan past. The first Christian Kings of East Anglia, Sigeberht and Anna, were both buried outside the area which became the Liberty, as was the Royal Hall which Anna moved from Rendlesham to Blythburgh.

On the 23rd June 679 Etheldreda died at Ely as the result of a plague which had caused her to have a high fever and a tumour in the neck. Her physician lanced the tumour, and for a couple of days the operation seems to have been successful. The swelling went down, and the fever was reduced, but by the third day her condition worsened and she died. In his chronicle the Venerable Bede records that she "took great joy in this kind of sickness" saying “I know for certain that I worthily bear the burden of pain in my neck, because I remember, that when I was a girl, I bore the superfluous burden of necklaces, and I believe that the heavenly pity has therefore willed me to be grieved with pain in my neck, that I may be acquitted from the guilt of useless vanity, so that now instead of gold and pearls the redness and burning of the swelling breaks out of my neck. She had been Abbess for 6 years and the Ely community unanimously elected her elder sister Seaxburh to succeed her.

Sixteen years after Etheldreda's death, it was decided to take what remained of her body from the grave in the churchyard where she had wished it to be, and place it within the church. When Etheldreda's coffin was disinterred and opened her body showed no sign of decay and its linen wrappings were whole and fresh. The only sign of the tumour which had been removed from her throat was a slight scar. This was accepted as a miracle, the final proof that Etheldreda was a great saint. The nuns washed, and re-clothed the body before putting it into the coffin and all proper rites, enshrined it in the church on 17th October 695.

Etheldreda’s shrine at Ely soon became a place of pilgrimage and the old wooden coffin and grave clothes, which were preserved as relics, were of great power and many miraculous healings were reported.

In memory of her, English women used to wear round their necks a chain made of fine small silk, which was called St. Etheldreda's chain. Her name, shortened to Audrey, was given to a cheap kind of lace, and changed still further into tawdry, applied to things more showy than valuable, such as the trinkets sold at the great fairs held in her honour at Ely.

Under Abbess Seaxburh the community at Ely flourished for about twenty years, until her death on 6th July 699. In accordance with her wishes her body was placed in the church next to that of her sister, Etheldreda.

Ermenilda, Seaxburh’s daughter, became the next abbess. She had been trained under Etheldreda, but at her mother's request, had gone to take charge of the foundation at Sheppey. Ermenilda was succeeded by her famous daughter Werburga, who had also received her initial training under Etheldreda. Werburga had followed her mother as abbess of Sheppey, and then, at the King of Mercia's (her uncle Ethelred) request, she had founded monasteries at Hanbury, and Trentham in Staffordshire.

Seaxburh, Ermenilda and Werburga were all made saints for the same  reason Etheldreda had. Their bodies showed no sign of decay when they were disinterred and moved to a new location within a decade or two of their death. Those who cast doubts on whether such occurrences are a true sign of sainthood point out that the extreme austerity of monastic life would have left monks and nuns reduced to little more than skin and bone and that such bodies are likely to mummify naturally. They also point out that during the final ceremonies the bodies were washed, treated with aromatic herbs, and re-clothed before being put into the coffin and that such treatment may have prevented decay.

Other miraculous happenings relating to Etheldreda are cited by chroniclers. The best known, is the sprouting of a staff which Etheldreda stuck into the ground preparatory to sleeping while on her progress from Northumbria to Ely. When she awoke next morning the ash wood staff had produced buds, and even new leaves.

Last edited 16 Aug 23