Etheldreda: Queen and Saint.

By Jim Linwood -  https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10289518

Etheldreda (also known as Aethlthryth or Audrey) was an Anglo-Saxon princess born in Suffolk about 636 AD. Her father was Anna (a straightforward name but to our ears more puzzling) King of the East Angles. 

 It is to Audrey that we owe Ely Cathedral. After two political marriages she founded the first monastery on this site in 673 AD.

Etheldreda (can’t say Audrey. Puts me in mind of a soap character) had always wanted to be a nun. Her father had different ideas, marrying her off to Tondbert, a local chieftain. She did though acquire the island of Ely as a present from her new husband.

Two years later Tondbert died and like a dutiful daughter she married Ecgrith, the future king of Northumbria. According to historians, Etheldreda ‘preserved the glory of perfect virginity’ so it is hardly surprising that after twelve years of marriage, Ecgrith released her from her vows. 

Free at last, she became a nun at Coldingham, where her aunt Ebbe was Abbess. In 673 she left Coldingham and journeyed south to Ely where she founded her own monastery – a double house—one for both nuns and monks. 

Despite or because of a pious life of abstinence, wearing only rough woollen clothing, eating only once a day and praying throughout the night, she died six years later —679 AD—from a tumour in her neck, and was buried in a simple wooden coffin outside the Abbey. Her sister Seaxburga the widowed Queen of Kent, succeeded her as abbess.

Sixteen years after her death, Etheldreda’s body was moved into the Abbey and was found to be ‘incorrupt’ – interpreted as a sign of her holiness. More than that, the wound in her neck where the doctor had tried to excise the tumour had completely healed. From then on, her tomb became a focus for pilgrims and the site of many miracles. 

Initially pilgrims were few because Ely pre conquest was an island and necessitated the hire of a boat. The rich though, were actively encouraged. Queen Emma, wife of Ethelred the Unready and then of his successor king Cnut, was an early benefactor, both she and Cnut taking the boat there in 1030. 

After the Norman Conquest, William the Conqueror built a road through the marshes, mainly to crush rebellions and subjugate the area.The road, of course, encouraged more pilgrims to visit. 

Her tomb became even grander when the Abbey grew into a cathedral in 1109—and grander still in 1252 when the Cathedral was extended to allow more space for the hordes of new pilgrims.

And then came  the Reformation and the even more malign Dean Goodrich. With malicious intent he destroyed the tomb so completely her body disappeared and hasn’t been found to this day. A simple stone marks the site of the original shrine.

But behind that, a rather splendid altar

There is though, a fascinating artefact that survived the malign dean Goodrich.

And for those who wish to raise a glass to the blessed Audrey, her feast day is fast approaching. June 23rd. Put it in your diaries.