*Ø* Blogmanac October 17 | Feast day of St Etheldreda, or Audrey (C of E)
She gave us the word 'tawdry'
Now Etheldreda shines upon our days, Shedding the light of grace on all our ways. Born of a noble and a royal line, She brings to Christ her King a life more fine.
The Venerable Bede
Northumbrian Queen Etheldreda was canonized under the name Audrey.
Third and most celebrated of the saintly daughters of Annas, or Anna, king of East Anglia (of the family of the Uffingas, descendants of the Norse God, Odin), by his wife, Saewara; a sister of Saint Jurmin, Etheldreda, or Audrey, was born at Exning in Suffolk, circa 636 and grew up wishing to be a nun like her two sisters.
Said to be “twice a widow and always a virgin”, Etheldreda kept her vow to be a nun although her parents twice forced her to marry to Saxon princes. She was widowed after three years marriage to Tondbert, King of South Gyrwe, an East Anglian subkingdom in the Fens; As part of their marriage settlement, Tondbert gave his wife an estate then called Elge, later known as Ely. Legend says that the marriage was never consumated, because Etheldreda had taken a vow of perpetual virginity.
For reasons of state, probably to secure an alliance for the house of the Uffingas with the powerful Kingdom of Northumbria against the aggressive Mercians – she she married a second time, to Egfrith, the second son of Oswiu, King of Northumbria. Her new husband knew of her vow, but grew tired of living with her and having no sexual relations, and began to make advances on her, but she refused him. He tried to bribe the local bishop, Saint Wilfrid of York, to release her from her vow. Refusing, Wilfrid helped Audrey escape to a promontory called Colbert's Head where a seven-day high tide, considered divine intervention, separated the two; the young man gave up. The marriage was later annulled, and Audrey became a nun.
Later, as she travelled, on a very hot day, Etheldreda was overcome with fatigue. She stuck her staff into the ground and lay down to rest. When she awoke, the staff had grown leaves and branches, and it afterwards became a mighty oak tree, the largest for many miles around.
After many days of tiresome walking, Audrey arrived on her own lands in Ely. Here she found a good piece of fertile land, supporting six hundred families and surrounded by swamps (fens), forming protection from invaders.
Here, in 673 CE, Etheldreda built a large double monastery where she died on June 23, 679. Her relics were translated, or moved, on October 17, 695. When she died, Audrey had an enormous and unsightly tumor on her neck, which she gratefully accepted as divine retribution for all the necklaces she had worn in her early years. However, according to Saint Bede, when her tomb was opened by her sister Saint Sexburga, her successor as abbess at Ely Abbey, ten (or 16) years after her death, her body was found incorrupt, her face was beautifully youthful, and the tumor had healed.
When Etheldreda’s shrine at Ely Cathedral was destroyed during the Reformation, the saintly Queen Etheldreda’s hand was preserved by a devout Catholic family. Her hand, still incorrupt, was enshrined when a little Catholic Church was re-established in Ely. According to an apocryphal tale, Queen Elizabeth II, on a tour of the cathedral, met the cranky Irish priest of the small Catholic Church. When she asked him if it wouldn’t be a "nice gesture" to return the hand of St Etheldreda to the cathedral; he replied that it would be a nice gesture for her to return the cathedral to the Catholic church.
We get the word ‘tawdry’ from her name. At the fair of St Audrey, at Ely, were sold ‘tawdry (saint Audrey) laces’, cheap necklaces, associated with the neck disease suffered by the saint. In time, the word ‘tawdry’ came to apply to any piece of glittering trash or tarnished finery.
Her feast day is commemorated this day in the Anglican (Episcopal) Church and in the Catholic Church on June 23. She is patron of Cambridge University, neck ailments, throat ailments and widows.
One time I gave thee a paper of pins,
Another time a tawdry lace,
And if thou wilt not grant me love,
In truth I'll die before thy face.
Old English ballad
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Receive similar items free each day with a free subscription to Wilson's Almanac ezine. Send a blank email
She gave us the word 'tawdry'
Now Etheldreda shines upon our days, Shedding the light of grace on all our ways. Born of a noble and a royal line, She brings to Christ her King a life more fine.
The Venerable Bede
Northumbrian Queen Etheldreda was canonized under the name Audrey.
Third and most celebrated of the saintly daughters of Annas, or Anna, king of East Anglia (of the family of the Uffingas, descendants of the Norse God, Odin), by his wife, Saewara; a sister of Saint Jurmin, Etheldreda, or Audrey, was born at Exning in Suffolk, circa 636 and grew up wishing to be a nun like her two sisters.
Said to be “twice a widow and always a virgin”, Etheldreda kept her vow to be a nun although her parents twice forced her to marry to Saxon princes. She was widowed after three years marriage to Tondbert, King of South Gyrwe, an East Anglian subkingdom in the Fens; As part of their marriage settlement, Tondbert gave his wife an estate then called Elge, later known as Ely. Legend says that the marriage was never consumated, because Etheldreda had taken a vow of perpetual virginity.
For reasons of state, probably to secure an alliance for the house of the Uffingas with the powerful Kingdom of Northumbria against the aggressive Mercians – she she married a second time, to Egfrith, the second son of Oswiu, King of Northumbria. Her new husband knew of her vow, but grew tired of living with her and having no sexual relations, and began to make advances on her, but she refused him. He tried to bribe the local bishop, Saint Wilfrid of York, to release her from her vow. Refusing, Wilfrid helped Audrey escape to a promontory called Colbert's Head where a seven-day high tide, considered divine intervention, separated the two; the young man gave up. The marriage was later annulled, and Audrey became a nun.
Later, as she travelled, on a very hot day, Etheldreda was overcome with fatigue. She stuck her staff into the ground and lay down to rest. When she awoke, the staff had grown leaves and branches, and it afterwards became a mighty oak tree, the largest for many miles around.
After many days of tiresome walking, Audrey arrived on her own lands in Ely. Here she found a good piece of fertile land, supporting six hundred families and surrounded by swamps (fens), forming protection from invaders.
Here, in 673 CE, Etheldreda built a large double monastery where she died on June 23, 679. Her relics were translated, or moved, on October 17, 695. When she died, Audrey had an enormous and unsightly tumor on her neck, which she gratefully accepted as divine retribution for all the necklaces she had worn in her early years. However, according to Saint Bede, when her tomb was opened by her sister Saint Sexburga, her successor as abbess at Ely Abbey, ten (or 16) years after her death, her body was found incorrupt, her face was beautifully youthful, and the tumor had healed.
When Etheldreda’s shrine at Ely Cathedral was destroyed during the Reformation, the saintly Queen Etheldreda’s hand was preserved by a devout Catholic family. Her hand, still incorrupt, was enshrined when a little Catholic Church was re-established in Ely. According to an apocryphal tale, Queen Elizabeth II, on a tour of the cathedral, met the cranky Irish priest of the small Catholic Church. When she asked him if it wouldn’t be a "nice gesture" to return the hand of St Etheldreda to the cathedral; he replied that it would be a nice gesture for her to return the cathedral to the Catholic church.
We get the word ‘tawdry’ from her name. At the fair of St Audrey, at Ely, were sold ‘tawdry (saint Audrey) laces’, cheap necklaces, associated with the neck disease suffered by the saint. In time, the word ‘tawdry’ came to apply to any piece of glittering trash or tarnished finery.
Her feast day is commemorated this day in the Anglican (Episcopal) Church and in the Catholic Church on June 23. She is patron of Cambridge University, neck ailments, throat ailments and widows.
One time I gave thee a paper of pins,
Another time a tawdry lace,
And if thou wilt not grant me love,
In truth I'll die before thy face.
Old English ballad
Pip Wilson's articles are available for your publication, on application. Further details
Receive similar items free each day with a free subscription to Wilson's Almanac ezine. Send a blank email
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