Æthelthryth, also known as Saint Etheldreda: Anglo-Saxon princess, Queen of Northumbria, founder of Ely Cathedral, and patron saint of sore throats.
Aethelthryth was probably born in Exning, Suffolk around 636AD. Her father Anna was King of East Anglia, part of a powerful ruling dynasty (her great uncle Raedwald is believed to be the occupant of the Sutton Hoo burial site). Aethelthryth and her siblings would have had a relatively privileged and very devout upbringing: the family were early converts to the new religion of Christianity, and she and all of her siblings were eventually canonised.
Aethelthryth’s first marriage was to Tondberct around 652. Tondberct was a chief of the Fens and gave his new wife the Isle of Ely as a wedding present. Aethelthryth was just a teenager, but she managed to persuade the powerful chief to respect the vow of chastity she had made prior to their marriage. He died just three years later, and Aethelthryth retired to Ely.
However a young princess was a valuable asset and she couldn’t escape the world of politics for long: in 660 she was married again. At only fourteen years old, her new husband Ecgfrifth was younger than her, but he was heir to the throne of Northumbria – the most powerful of the Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms. Ten years later Ecgfrifth acceded the throne and Etheldreda became Queen.
As with her first husband, Aethelthryth persuaded Ecgfrifth that she should continue to preserve her virginity as a sign of devotion to her true bridegroom, Jesus Christ. After some twelve years of marriage a frustrated Ecgfrifth appealed to the Bishop of York to intervene; the Bishop however sided with Aethelthryth, and she fled the reach of her libidinous husband by escaping to Ely. There in the mists of the Fens, cut off by the tides and mudflats, she reclaimed her sexual independence. In an event unheard of in Medieval England, Ecgfrifth granted her request for a divorce.
In Ely she founded a double monastery in 673, becoming the first Abbess of a community of monks and nuns. After her death in 679 her body was moved to a grander tomb and was discovered to be uncorrupted – the lack of decay a symbol of her purity. Her body and clothes soon proved to possess miraculous powers and she became one of the most well-known and popular early English saints. The presence of her relics and shrine were key to the early wealth and success of the new Ely Cathedral.
Aethelthryth’s shrine can still be visited in the Cathedral’s presbytery.
Further Reading:
A Queer History of Cambridgeshire 