Chapter 19

King Egfrid married Etheldreda,¹ a daughter of Anna, King of the East Angles, of whom I have often spoken; he was a very devout man, noble in mind and deed. Before her marriage to Egfrid, Etheldreda had been married to Tondbert, a prince of the South Gyrwas; but he died shortly after the wedding, and she was given to King Egfrid. Although she lived with him for twelve years, she preserved the glory of perpetual virginity. This fact is absolutely vouched for by Bishop Wilfrid of blessed memory, of whom I made enquiry when some people doubted it. He said that Egfrid promised to give estates and much wealth to him if he could persuade the queen to consummate the marriage, knowing that there was no man for whom she had a higher regard. And there is no reason to doubt that such a thing could happen in our own day, since reliable histories record it as having happened on several occasions in the past through the grace of the same Lord who has promised to remain with us until the end of the world. For the miraculous preservation of her body from corruption in the tomb is evidence that she had remained untainted by bodily intercourse.

For a long time Etheldreda begged the king to allow her to retire from worldly affairs and serve Christ the only true King in a convent. And having at length obtained his reluctant consent, she entered the convent of the Abbess Ebba, King Egfrid’s aunt, at Coludesbyrig,² where she received the veil and clothing of a nun from the hands of Bishop Wilfrid. A year later she was herself made Abbess in the district called Ely, where she built a convent and became the virgin mother of many virgins vowed to God and displayed the pattern of a heavenly life in word and deed. It is said that from the time of her entry into the convent she never wore linen but only woollen garments, and that she would seldom wash in hot water except on the eve of the greater festivals such as Easter, Pentecost, and the Epiphany, and then only after she and her assistants had helped the other handmaids of Christ to wash. She seldom had more than one meal a day except at the greater festivals or under urgent necessity, and she always remained at prayer in the church from the hour of Matins until dawn unless prevented by serious illness. Some say that she possessed the spirit of prophecy, and that in the presence of all the community, she not only foretold the plague that was to cause her death, but also the number who would die of it in the convent. She was taken to Christ in the presence of her nuns seven years after her appointment as abbess, and in accordance with her instructions she was buried among them in the wooden coffin in which she died.

Etheldreda was succeeded in the office of abbess by her sister Sexburg,³ who had been wife of King Earconbert of Kent. Sixteen years after Etheldreda’s burial, this abbess decided to have her bones exhumed, placed in a new coffin, and transferred into the church. She therefore directed some of the brethren to search for stone to make this coffin. And since the district of Ely was surrounded on all sides by sea and fens and had no large stones, they took a boat and came to a small ruined city not far distant which the English call Grantchester. After a short while they discovered near the city walls a white marble sarcophagus of very beautiful workmanship with a close-fitting lid of similar stone; and realizing that God had prospered their journey, they returned thanks to him and brought it back to the convent.

When the tomb of the holy and virginal spouse of Christ was opened and her body brought to light, it was found as free from decay as if she had died and been buried that very day; this is vouched for by Bishop Wilfrid and many others of their own knowledge. But even fuller proof is given by the physician Cynifrid, who was present at both her death and her exhumation. Cynifrid used to relate that during her last illness she had a large tumour under the jaw. ‘I was asked,’ he said, ‘to open the tumour and drain away the poisonous matter in it. I did this, and for two days she seemed somewhat easier, so that many thought that she would recover from her illness. But on the third day her earlier pain returned, and she was taken from this world, and exchanged all pain and death for everlasting life and health. When her bones were to be taken up out of the grave so many years later, a pavilion was raised over it, and the whole community stood around it chanting, the brothers on one side, and the sisters on the other. The abbess herself, with a few others, went in to take up and wash the bones, when we suddenly heard her cry out in a loud voice, “Glory to the Name of the Lord!” Shortly afterwards they opened the door of the pavilion and called me in. There I saw the body of the holy virgin taken from its grave and laid on a bed as though asleep; and when they had uncovered her face, they showed me that the incision which I had made had healed. This astounded me; for in place of the open gaping wound with which she was buried, there remained only the faint mark of a scar. All the linen clothes in which the body had been enfolded appeared so fresh and new that they looked as if they had been wrapped that very day around her pure body.’

It is said that when she was affected by this tumour and pain in her jaw and neck, she welcomed pain of this kind, and used to say: ‘I realize very well that I deserve this wearisome disease in my neck, on which, as I well remember, when I was a girl, I used to wear the needless burden of jewellery. And I believe that God in His goodness wishes me to endure this pain in my neck so that I may be absolved from the guilt of my needless vanity. So now I wear a burning red tumour on my neck instead of gold and pearls.’ At the touch of these robes devils were expelled from the bodies of those whom they possessed, and other complaints were sometimes cured. And the coffin in which she was first buried is said to have cured diseases of the eye, relieving pain and failing sight in those who placed their heads on the coffin as they prayed. When the sisters had washed the virgin’s body and clothed it in new robes, they carried it into the church and laid it in the sarcophagus which had been brought, where it is held in great veneration to this day. This same sarcophagus was found to fit the virgin’s body in a marvellous way, as though it had been especially made for her, and the special place cut out for the head exactly fitted the measurements of her own.

Ely lies in the province of the East Angles, an area of about six hundred hides. As I have said, it resembles an island surrounded by water and marshes, and it derives its name from the vast quantity of eels that are caught in the marshes. And the servant of Christ wished to have her monastery in this place because, as already mentioned, her forbears came from the province of the East Angles.