Mercia. Her sons were Egbert and Lothair, of whom, hereafter, mention will be made.1

Sexburga, her daughter and sister, all received the religious veil in France. At this time there were very few conventual establishments in Britain, and it was customary with the Anglo-Saxon princes and nobles to send their children into France to be educated in the monasteries there. The most celebrated of these establishments, which were really schools for education, and noted for resort by the English, were Faremoutiers, Briège, Andelie, and Chelles. Etheldreda, at some period of her life, is said to have resided at Faremoutiers :2 perhaps it might have been while waiting for the completion of her edifice at Ely.

At the time the royal Princesses of England arrived, Hildelitha was Abbess of Faremoutiers. Ethelburga joined her pious flock, but was at a subsequent period recalled to her native country to assume the government of the celebrated Abbey of Barking, which had been built for her reception by her brother Erkenwald, Bishop of London, a princely prelate, whose virtues afterwards caused his relics to be worshipped in a famous shrine dedicated to him in St. Paul's Church.

Ercongeca made her profession either in Briège or

1 Dugdale.

2 St. Fara was the name of the foundress of the Monastery of Faremoutiers, and is supposed to have been the first abbess. Hildelitha, who afterwards presided there, returned to England to assist Ethelburga in the management of Barking Abbey. St. Sethrid, the daughter of Hereswyda, afterwards held the government of Faremoutiers, prior to her union with King Anna. Etheldreda is esteemed third Abbess of Faremoutiers. According to Holinshed, both Sethrid and Ethelburga became Abbesses of Briège.-See ante, p. 21, note.

VOL. II.

D

Chelles; it is not known to which place Sexburga retired, though she seems to have spent the six following years in France. Sexburga, even during her husband's life time, had earnestly desired to devote herself exclusively to the service of God, in a state of religious seclusion; and in order that others, at least, might be enabled to attend on the divine service night and day without impediment, she had commenced erecting a nunnery in the isle of Sheppey, on the coast of Kent, having obtained a grant of land for that purpose. Some say that this was given by her son Egbert, who succeeded his father on the throne, but the building appears to have been commenced during the life time of Ercombert, though not formed into a community till A.D. 664.2

1

The establishment consisted of seventy-four nuns in all, who were assembled there by the widowed Queen, who had either taken on herself previously the monastic vows and veil, or did so at this time, when in her own person she assumed the government of the monastery.

The ruins of this little edifice, called Minstre, in the isle of Sheppey, have survived the lapse of ages to commemorate their royal foundress. The buildings attached to the monastery were some twenty miles in compass. The original edifice was destroyed by the Danes, but rebuilt in 1130, and consecrated by William, Archbishop of Canterbury, to the honour of the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Sexburga: it subsisted in the hands of Benedictine nuns till the dissolution of abbeys, at which time the "building of Minstre3 was valued at the

1 Dugdale says the edifice was completed in 675. Weever gives as the date 710 (an obvious error). Dugdale numbers the nuns at seventy seven.

2 Weever.

3 Ibid.

annual sum of 1297. 78. 10d.; some part of it is now converted into a parish church, in which are divers funeral monuments, supposed to have been removed out of the adjoining chapel, some of which make a show of wondrous great antiquity."

It is said, that a desire still further to seclude herself from the world afterwards induced Sexburga to seek the solitude of Ely, and to this may be added a wish to dwell under the same roof as Etheldreda, her much-loved sister, who had obtained even then an extraordinary reputation for sanctity. It would appear that this arrangement was made by Sexburga at the period of Wulphere's death, who had succeeded Penda on the throne of Mercia, and who, during the life time of Ercombert, had espoused her daughter Ermenilda,' Princess-Royal of the house of Kent.

Wulphere had heard of the virtues and piety of Sexburga's daughter with admiration,2 and professing himself a Christian, undertook, at the time of his union with her, to extirpate the remnants of paganism from Mercia,3 where the Christian faith had been already 1 She (Ermenilda) was heiress-apparent to the dignity of her father's kingdom.-Bromton.

During her government of the Monastery of Minster, Sexburga's mind had to sustain a severe shock in the criminal conduct of her son, King Egbert, who was under the necessity of paying the weregild, or fine, imposed on a murderer by the Saxon laws.

2 William of Malmesbury, Butler.

3 "There still remained, in the kingdom of Mercia, an excessive and inveterate Pagan barbarism. But Queen Ermenilda, the handmaid of God, having been instructed by her parents in the apostolic alphabet of the first teacher, St. Augustine, by her sweetness, by her soothing exhortations, by her manners and benefits, softened their untamed dispositions, and exhorted them to the sweet yoke of Christ and the rewards of everlasting blessedness; while the perverse and most rebellious she repressed by her power: nor did she rest until

ntroduced by his deceased brother Peada. Worldly motives delayed the performance of this promise, and "the humble and patient" Ermenilda strove in the interval to soften the fierce temper of her warlike husband. She educated her family in the pure principles of the Christian faith, and daily performed, with her only daughter Werburga, the whole of the church service. "This young princess, early distinguished for surpassing piety, was wont to spend many hours daily on her knees in private prayer; she also observed with diligence the fasts enjoined by the religion she professed."

The sons of Ermenilda were Wulphade, Rufin, and Kenred, who emulated their mother's example of virtue and goodness. These Princes were taught in the faith of Christ by St. Chad, who also baptised them. This prelate was Bishop of Litchfield, and had a cell or hermitage in a forest, to which the young Princes were at times accustomed to resort for instruction. The ill-fated youths were, however, destined to come to an untimely end. The circumstances which led to their sad fate were these: Werbode was a knight of Wulphere's court, very powerful, and his influence was great over the mind of Wulphere, to whom he had rendered great services in arms; so that he readily obtained his promise to give him the beautiful Princess Werburga, his daughter, provided her own consent could be obtained. The news of Wulphere's promise much grieved the Queen and her sons, who all confirmed Werburga in her refusal of his suit, more particularly Ermenilda; for Werbode was a pagan, and had induced Wulphere to waver in his intentions regarding the true faith, and at she extirpated the idols and demoniacal rites, and filled the kingdom of the Mercians with churches and priests."-Bromton's Chronicle.

length to renounce it and follow the worship of idols. When the knight found that these young Princes stood in his way to Werburga's favour, he resolved on their death. An opportunity soon offered. He discovered that the royal youths visited St. Chad1 at times, under pretence of hunting; and contrived that Wulphere should be stationed in a place where he could see his sons pass on one of these occasions, having previously informed him of their secret religious object. The King's passion at beholding them on such a mission was so furious, that he gave an order for their execution; but no sooner was the cruel deed perpetrated, than he was filled with remorse and penitence, and though too late to redeem the loss of his children, threw himself on the pity and devotion of the Queen and St. Chad, and having entered into commune with himself, became a convert to the Christian doctrine, abolished heathenism in Mercia, and by his endeavours and example, propagated the Christian faith. The bodies of Wulfade and Rufin were placed by the Queen in a sepulchre of stone, and over the spot where they were interred this afflicted mother and her penitent husband founded the Priory of Stone.2 Wulphere afterwards founded Peterborough Cathedral.

The beautiful Werburga had resolved to devote her life to the service of God, and had refused on that account many suitors for her hand, amongst whom was the Prince of Wessex, who waited upon her with rich presents, to receive the same answer as other aspirants. Upon the change which took place in the religious

"Chad travelled about, not on horseback, but, after the manner of the Apostles, on foot, to preach the Gospel in towns, the open country, cottages, villages, and castles."-Bede.

2 In Staffordshire.-Stowe, Leycester, Butler.