The Anglo-Saxon Nuns (part 2 of 6)
^^ "Erant in eodem monasterio... sorores duse Edelmundi regis... diligebantque praeeipuum patrem Botulfum sicut doctorem sanctitatis et castimoniai, et plurimum ob studium gentis suae. Adhuc siquidem tenellulae raissae fuerant ultra mare ad discendam in monasteriali gyranasio disciplinam coelestis sophite. Videntes beatum ad dilectum Doctorem velle repatriare, moerentes rnandata imponunt praeferenda i^gi et fratri."— Vita S. Botulfi, ap. Acta SS. 0. S. B., s£ec. iii. vol. iii. p. 3.
^^ In English, St. Bees. This is the name still borne by the promontory surmounted by a lighthouse, and situated a little south of Whitehaven. Below the southern slope of the promontory, and sheltered by its height from the sea breezes, in the midst of a group of fine trees, stands the Priory, built byRaoul de Meschines in 1120, and restored in 1817, to be used as an English Church college. There remain still some precious relies cf the buildings of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and even, according to some antiquaries, of the Saxon edifice destroyed by the Danes, which preceded the Norman foundation.
^' " Accipe, inquit, eulogium istud a Domino tibi missum, quo te illi
THE ANGLO-SAXON NUNS. G67
before her wedding day, while the guards of the king her father, instead of keeping watch, as usual, with sabres at their side and axes on their shoulders, were, like their guests, deep in the revel, she escaped alone, with nothing but the bracelet which the angel had given her, threw herself into a skiff, and landed on the opposite shore, in Northumbria, where she lived long in a cell in the midst of the wood, uniting the care of the sick poor around with her prayers.^^ Fear of the pirates who infested these coasts led her, after a while, farther inland. What then became of her? Here the confusion, which is so general in the debatable ground between legend and history, becomes nearly inextricable. Was it she who, under the name of He'iu, is pointed out to us by Bede as the woman to whom Bishop Aidan, the apostle of Northumbria, gave the veil, and whom he placed at the head of the first nunnery which had been seen in the north of England? ^^ Or was it she who, under the name of Begu, after having abdicated the dignity of abbess, lived for thirty years a humble and simple nun in one of the monasteries under the rule of the great Abbess of Whitby, Hilda, whose intimate friend she became, as well as her daughter in religion ?*'^ These are questions which have been long disputed by the learned, and which it seems impossible to bring to any satisfactory conclusion.^! What is certain, however, is, that a virgin of
subaratam (sic) agnoscas. Pone ergo illud sicut signum super cor tuuni et super brachium tuuni, ut nullum admittas preeter ipsum." — Cf. Cautic. viii. G.
^^ " Erat speciosa forma praj cunctis filiabus regionis illius.... Virgo armillam super se fere indesinenter portavit.... Indulgebant calicibus epotandis potentes ad potandum et viri fortes ad miscendam ebrietatem.... Plures ex fortissimis Hybernia) ambiebant totura palatium et uniuscujusque sica super femur suum et bipennis super humerum et lancea in manu ejus.... Pater ejus... inventam reduceret, et reductam plagis vapularet nmltis.... Omnia claustra ad tactum armillce clavis David virgini egregiaj egredienti aperuit. ... In loco tunc temporis satis nemoroso secus litus maris posito cellam virgineam sibi construxit." — Vita S. Begce et de Miraculis ejusdem, ed. Tomlinson (Carlisle, 1842), pp. 46-53.
^* See p. 259.
»" Bede, Hist. Eccles., iv. 23.
" Most ancient authors believed this. The Bollandists themselves (vol. ii. Sept., p. 0'J4) seem to admit it, though they seem to have had no knowledge of the Life of the saint, written by the monks of St. Bets, and which is founded entirely on this belief. The Vita S. Begce ct de Miraculis ejusdem, which was published for the first time in 1842, from a MS. in the British Museum, by Mr. Tomlinson, in the collection called Carlisle Historical Tracts, should not, however, in our opinion, counterbalance the contemporary testimony of Bede. The latter, always so careful to notice the Scottish origin of the personages of his narrative, whenever there is occasion, remains silent as to that of the first Northumbrian nun; and the two passages the name of Bega figures among the most well known and long venerated saints of the north-west of England. She was celebrated during her lifetime for her austerity, her fervor, and an anxiety for the poor, which led her, during the building of her monastery, to prepare with her own hands the food of the masons, and to wait upon them in their workshops, hastening from place to place like a bee laden with honey.^^ She remained down to the middle ages, the patroness of the laborious and often oppressed population of the district, in which tradition presents her to us as arriving alone and fearless on a foreign shore, flying from her royal bridegroom. In the twelfth century the famous bracelet which the angel had given her was regarded with tender veneration: the pious confidence of the faithful turned it into a relic upon which usurpers, prevaricators, and oppressors against whom there existed no other defence, were made to swear, with the certainty that a perjury committed on so dear and sacred a pledge would not pass unpunished. It was also to Bega and her bracelet that the cultivators of the soil had recourse against the new and unjust taxes with which their lords burdened them. In vain the Scottish rievers, or the prej)otents of the country, treading down under their horses' feet the harvests of the Cumbrians, made light of the complaints and threats of the votaries of St. Bega. " What is the good old woman to me, and what harm can she do me? " said one. " Let your Bega come! " said another — "let her come and do whatever she likes! She cannot make one of our horses cast their shoes." ^^ Sooner or later
of the same chapter (iv. 23), where he speaks of HeTu, foundress of Hartlepool, and of Begu, contemporary with the death of Hilda, seem in no way to point to the same person. The Rev. Father Faber, in his Life of St. Bega, published while he was still an Anglican, in 1844, seems to hold that there were at least two saints whose "acts are confounded together, and takes care to declare that his narrative does not pretend to historical accuracy. Wordsworth dedicated, in 1833, some of his finest verses to the still popular memory of the Irish saint, and of the places which bear her name.
''- " In officinis monasterii construendis... manu sua cibos coquens parabat, artificibus apparebat, velut apis mellificans, curreus et discurrens ministrabat."— Vita S. Begh., p. 55.
^* *' Protulerunt in medium S. Bega9 virginis armillam, quia confidebant inultum non prseterire perjurium super illara perpetratum.... Versabatur illo tempore coutroversia inter eos qui dominabantur terrje de Coupelandia, et homines subditos sibi, super quadam consuetudine qua boves solebant dominis pensari.... Impetebantur homines et cogebantur plus reddere quam arbitrabantur se solvere debere....
" 'Quid mihi facere poterit vetula ilia? ' et manum ad secretiores partes natium admovens: ' Hie, hie, inquit, sagittabit me.*... Quidam autem divine vengeance struck these culprits; and the fame of the chastisements sent upon them confirmed the faith of the people in the powerful intercession of her who, six hundred years after her death, still gave a protection so effectual and energetic against feudal rudeness, to the captive and to the oppressed, to the chastity of women, and the rights of the lowly, upon the western shore of Northumbria, as did St. Cuthbert throughout the rest of that privileged district.**^
In proportion, however, as the details of the lives of holy nuns in England are investigated, the diflSculty of tracing the line of demarcation between history and legend becomes more and more evident. But after all let us not lament too much over this confusion. True history— '' that which modifies souls, and forms opinions and manners " ^^ — is not produced solely from dates and facts, but from the ideas and impressions which fill and sway the souls of contemporaries; translating into facts, anecdotes and scenes, the sentiments of admiration, gratitude, and love which inspire them for beings whom they believe to be of a superior nature to themselves, and whose benefits and example survive the ravages of time and human inconstancy.
We must then make up our minds to meet with this confusion through the entire series of our narratives, which are intended to give a picture of the faith and passions, the virtues and vices, of the new Christians of England, rather than to trace in methodical and chronological succession the course of uncertain or insignificant events. Let our readers be contented with our assurance that we will never permit ourselves to present to them, under the guise of truth, acts or words which are not of undisputed certainty.
adolescentulus sagittam... jaciens... percussit ilium in fonticulo fondamenti, quern ipse nianu sua designaverat.... 'Veniat Bega, veniat, et quod potest faciat.' " — Be Miraculis, pp. 68, G9, G2, 66. There is a curious passage in this work, p. 63, as to the terror with which, in the twelfth century, the .Scottish marauders were inspired by those English arrows which were afterwards so fatal to the French nobles in the great battles of the fourteenth century.
''' See above, p. 486. The narrative of St. Bega's miracles is clearly of the same period and conceived in the same spirit as the Lihelhis de Admirandis Beati Cuthberti Virtutibus. The most popular of these miracles, and that best remembered in the country, reminds us of the one commemorated at Rome on the festival of St. Mary of the Snow, the 15th of August. A fall of snow, in the midst of summer, marked exactly the disputed possessions of the monastery, the same which had been the original domain of the saint. Compare the text published by Tomlinson, p. 64, and the tradition preserved in the MSS. of the Chapter of Carlisle, ap. Notes on St. Bega, p. 15.
<* LiTTKE, Journal des Savants, November, 1862.
^lr'^',?n=°^ To put some sort of order into the notes which
the nuns, r piiio
WO havo gleaned on the subject oi the Anglo-baxon nuns, it will be Well to arrange them according to the principal dynasties, or families and countries from which had issued all those noble women so devoted to God, St. Peter, and St. Benedict, who have gained a place on the altars of Catholic England.
I do not think I have anything to add to what SunXrians. ^i^s already been said in respect to the Northumbrian princesses, descendants of Ella and Ida, the Man of Fire and the JRavager. The holy and powerful abbesses, Hilda of Whitby, Ebba of Coldingham, Elfleda, the daughter of Oswy, who was dedicated to God from her birth as a ransom for the liberation of her country, her mother Eanfleda, who on becoming a widow entered the abbey of her daughter— these often-repeated names cannot have escaped the memory of our readers. Let us add only, according to a tradition, ancient and widely spread,**^ though disputed by modern learning, that the three sons of Oswy who reigned over Northumberland in succession, and who have been so often mentioned in the life of Wilfrid, were all three forsaken by their wives, who determined to consecrate themselves to God; though doubtless the two princesses married to the elder and younger of these princes neither occasioned the same struggle nor won the same fame as their sister-inlaw St. Etheldreda, the wife of King Egfrid.
Let us then pass to the princesses of the most ancient Anglo-Saxon dynasty, the first converted to Christianity, that of the Ascings who reigned over the Jutes in the kingdom of Kent.
The As- The first and most historical figure which we nTs^yoV'^" meet in the cloister among the descendants of Hengist is that of the gentle and devoted Ethelburga, whose life is linked so closely with the history of the beginning of Northumbrian Christianity.**' She was the daughter of the first Christian king of South Anglia, and married the first Christian king of the North, Edwin, whose conversion was so difficult, whose reign was so prosperous, and his end so glorious. After the rapid ruin of that first
*^ This tradition, accepted by Pagi {uhi supra) from "William of Malmesbury, Alford, and many others, is disputed by the Bollandists as regards the two princesses married to the two brothers, Alchfrid the friend, and Aldfrid the enemy, of "Wilfrid.
« See pp. 209, 221.
Northumbrian Christianity which she, along with Bishop Paulinus, had begun, Queen Ethelburga, received with tender sympathy by her brother, the King of Kent, cared for no other crown but that of holy poverty. She obtained from her brother the gift of an ancient Roman villa, situated between Canterbury and the sea, on the coast opposite France, and there founded a monastery, where she herself took the veil. She was thus the first widow of Saxon race who consecrated herself to monastic life. The old church of her monastery, called Lyminge, still exists. The burying-place of the foundress, who passed there the fourteen last years of her life, and who, daughter of the founder of Canterbury and widow of the founder of York, was thus the first link between the two great centres of Catholic life among the Anglo-Saxons, is still shown.^^
We shall add nothing to what has been already said in respect to the daughter of Ethelburga, first Queen of Northumberland, and then a nun like her mother,^^ nor of her granddaughter, the Abbess Elfleda, the amiable friend of St. Cuthbert, and generous protectress of St. Wilfrid.^'^ But she had a sister, named Eadburga, who was a nun with her at Lyminge, and who, buried by her side in the monastery, was venerated along with her among the saints of England.^^ Her brother, who, like his father, married a Frankish princess,'^^ the great-granddaughter of Clovis and St. Clothilde, peopled with his descendants the Anglo-Saxon, and even foreign monasteries. Without speaking of his grand-daughters, Earcongotha, who became, as has been formerly said, Abbess of Faremoutier in France, and Ermenilda, Queen of Mercia, whom we have already seen, and shall meet again further on among the abbesses of Ely,^^ ^his second Christian king of the most ancient kingdom of the Heptarchy had a daughter called Eanswida, who, educated by the Roman
*^ It is believed that remains of the Roman buildings have been discovered in certain portions of the present church of Lyminge. The tomb of St. Ethelburga was situated under a buttress at the south-east of the choir. —Rev. R. C. Jenkins, Account of the Church of St. Mary and St. Eadburgh in Lyminge; London and Folkestone, 1859. Cf. Gentleman's Magazine, August, 18G2.
*^ See pp. 253, 305, and genealogical tables, App., VI. and VIL, pp. 752, 754. *° See pp. 40G, 476.
*' BoLLAND., Act. SS., Feb., vol. ii. p. 383, and vol. iii. p. 690. ** Emma, daughter of Clotaire II. — Boll., vol. viii. Oct., p. 90. *' They were both daughters of King Ercombert and St. Sexburga, she who was' Abbess of Ely after her sister Etheldreda. See genealogical table IX., p. 756.
Eanswida, Missionaries at Canterbury, received from them the founder of veil of the brides of God. She distinguished herself by the foundation of a monastery, which, with true Roman spirit, she dedicated to St. Peter, and of which she was the superior, at Folkestone, on the heights of those white cliffs crowned by green pasturage, which attract the first glance of the numberless travellers whom the rapid prows of our day deposit at that spot upon the English shore.
Legends of all kinds have accumulated round the name of this young and holy descendant of Hengist and Clovis; the gaps in her authentic history are filled by incidents which show the idea formed by the Anglo-Saxons of the supernatural power with which a monastic vocation invested a daughter of the sovereign race. Her father, it was told, proposed to marry her, like her aunt, to a Northumbrian prince, who was still a heathen. She obstinately refused. King Eadbald did not attempt to force her; but her suitor came with his train to urge his suit in person at a time when she was herself superintending the building of her future cloister. She sent him away without pity, defying him to lengthen, by the aid of his false gods, a rafter which was too short, which she herself succeeded in doing by praying with all her might to the true Saviour of the world. As soon as she was installed in her monastery she made it, after the fashion of all the religious foundations of the time, a great agricultural establishment as well as an ascetic sanctuary and a literary school. There, according to the popular tale, she tamed flocks of wild geese which spoiled her harvests, and which her servants stole from her poultry-yard and ate to her great displeasure with the tip of her crosier she dug a canal to bring to the monastery a stream of fresh water which was wanting. She died young in 640: her abbey, which was built too near the sea on an overhanging rock, was swallowed up by the waves; ^^ but the memory of this daughter of the conquering race, herself conquered by the love of God and her neighbor, long survived in the prayers of the faithful.^^ More than six hundred years after her death, a powerful Anglo-Norman baron renewed the Benedictine foundation of the Anglo-
°'' "A Romanis nionachis velatam esse, nullum dubium est, et monasticum institutum ab eisdem edoctam.... Oratorium suum rupibus suspensum, niari supererainens." — Boll., vol iv. August, pp. 685, 686.
*^ The Bollandists have published a fragment of her office.
Saxon princess, dedicating the church to St. Peter and St. Eanswida.^^
Another branch of the posterity of Hengist, issued from a young brother of Eanswida, who died before his father/-" has also been taken possession of by legendary lore. This prince left two sons and four daughters; the latter were all nuns, and reckoned among the saints.55 Hisitwo sons^^ were venerated as martyrs, according to the general idea of the time, which regarded as martyrdom every kind of violent death endured by the innocent. They were assassinated by a thane named Thunnor, who thus attempted to do a pleasure to King Egbert, the fourth successbr of St. Ethelbert, by freeing him of young cousins who might become dangerous competitors.*^'^ The legend here rises to the rank of true poetry, and at the same time embodies true morality, as is almost always the case. In a vain attempt to hide, it says, the bones of his victims, the assassin buried them in the palace of the king, and even under the throne on which he sat on festive occasions; ^^ but a supernatural light came to denounce the crime, shining upon the unknown tomb, and revealing it to the devotion of the faithful. The king, amazed and abashed, had to expiate the crime which was committed, if not by his orders at least to his advantage. Supported by the popular clamor, the two illustrious foreign monks, who were then the chief-justices and peace-makers of the country, Theodore, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the African Adrian, abbot of St. Augustin,^^ intimated to him that he must pay the 2^^i'C6 of blood— that is to say, the compensation ordained by all Teutonic laws —to a sister of the victims, and that all the more that this sister, called Domneva, was married to a Mercian prince, son of
*® This baron's name was John de Segrave, and his wife's Juliana de Sandwich. — Stevens, i. 399, ex. Weevek, p. 270.
°^ He was called Ermcnifred, and his death left the throne of Kent to his brother Ercombert, the third Christian king, father of King Egfrid, and of the saints Erraenilda and Earcongotha. See genealogical table B.
*^ Ermenberga or Domneva, Ermenburga, Etheldreda, and Ermengytha. *9 Ethelbert and Ethelred.
^° Bede says nothing of all this; but it has been related with more or less of detail by all the more recent authorities, William of Malmesbury, Simeon of Durham, Matthew of Westminster, and above all Thornc, in his Chronicle of the Abbey of St. Augustin at Canterbury. Cf. Lai>pexbeug, i. 239, and Thomas of Elmham, who gives a very detailed version, pp. 209 to 239 of the new edition issued by Hardwicke.
®' "In aula regia, sub regia cathedra." — Matth. Westmonast., p. 14. ^2 See their part in the history of Wilfrid, p. 34-t.
VOL. IL 57 the savage and unconquerable Penda.^^ This ransom of blood was to take the form of a territorial gift for the foundation of a monastery in which virgins consecrated to God should The course fo^ever supplicate divine pardon. Doraneva asked for as much land as a tame doe which belonged to her, could run round in one course. The spot was Thanet. ^^i^ -gij^^^^j ^f Thanet, at the mouth of the Thames, where their ancestor Hengis, and, two centuries later, St. Augustin had landed; and which was doubly dear to the nation as the place at which the Saxon occupation began and Christianity first appeared among them. It was, besides, a very fertile spot, the flower and jewel of the country, a sort of terrestrial paradise.^* King Egbert consented to this arrangement, and the parties met on the ground. The doe was let loose, and the king and his court followed it with their eyes, when the villain Thunnor arrived, crying out that Domneva was a witch, who had bewitched the king to make him give up his fair lands to the instinct of a brute. Then, being on horseback, he pursued the doe to stop her but in his wild career he came to a well, in which he was drowned, and which has ever since been called Thunnor's leapS'^ The doe's course included forty-two plough-lands: she crossed the island in two different directions before returning to her mistress. The land thus marked out was given over to Domneva and her spiritual posterity. Archbishop Theodore immediately consecrated the new foundation, which took the name of Minster, as who should say The Monastery.^6
Domneva became a widow, and taking then the name of
"* See genealogical tables, Appendix, VII. and VIII., pp. 754, 755. ^* " Post sororem eorura Dompnenam raisit, ut ipsa interfectionis pretium reciperet.... Venit rex tristis, veniam petiit.... Respondit Dompnena Quantum cerva mea domestica uno impetu percurrere poterit.... Emissa cerva currit velociter, aspiciente rege cum suis hilari vultu cursum cervae... .Insula arridens bona rerum copia, regni flos et thalamus... in qua tanquam quodam Elysio.... Clamavit Dompnenam incantatricem, et insipientem regemqui terram fertilem et nobilem bruti animalis indicio tradidit."
^* The situation of the well and the whole direction of the doe's course may be found in the old and curious map of the Isle of Thanet, which has been republished in miniature in Dugdale's Monasiicon (i. 84), and by the Bollandists (vol. iv. of July, p. 513), but the exact fac-simile of which is .found in the new edition of Elmham.
^^ This monastery, like all the English ones, was destroyed by the Danes, and rebuilt under the Normans. There still remains a large and beautiful church, newly restored. It is supposed that some remains of Domneva's original building can be traced in a portion of the tower of this church, built of large stones and Roman tiles. — Gentleman's Magazine, July, 1862.
Ermenberga/" was the first abbess of the new community, which was soon occupied by seventy nuns. But she soon gave up the government to her daughter Mildred, whom she bad sent into France, to Chelles, to receive a literary and religious education. The Abbess of Chelles, far from encouraging the young princess to embrace monastic life, employed every kind of threat and ill-usage to compel her to marry one of her relatives: thus at least says the legend, which is too singular, and too different in this point from all similar narratives, not to have a certain authenticity. But Mildred resisted the temptation victoriously. She returned to England to govern the abbe}' founded by her mother, and to give an example of all the monastic virtues to her sevent3^ companions. Ver}' few details of her life have ^,, •' ^,,. •',,, -. Greatpopubeeu preserved: which makes the extraordinary lantyof and prolonged popularity which has attached to her ^^'''^'^'*- name, her relics, and everything belonging to her, all the more wonderful. Her popularity eclipsed that of St. Augustin even in the district which he first won to the faith, and to such a point that the rock which had received the mark of his first footstep,'^^ and which lies a little to the east of Minster, took and retained up to the eighteenth century the name of St. Mildred's Rock.
An entire chapter would be necessary to narrate the violent struggles, the visions, and other incidents which are connected with the history of her relics, and what hagiographers call her posthumous fame. Her name, like that of many other Anglo-Saxon nuns, has once more become fashionable in our days, but it recalls to our ungrateful contemporaries nothing but the vague poetry of the past. It was mixed up with the real history of the Danes and Normans, of Canute the Great, of Edward the Confessor, of Lanfranc, of Edward I., the terrible victor of the Scots and Welsh.^^ The worship of Mildred appears interspersed in the midst of all these personages with every kind of edifying and amusing anecdote, such as touch the most delicate and the most diverse chords of the human heart. By the side of the touching scene in which the persecuted wife of
"'' According to another version she was called Ermenberga before she became abbess, and only then assumed the name of Domna Ebba, or Domneva. — Bolland., vol. viii. Oct., p. 91.
®* See above, p. 152, Cf. Stanley, Historical 3Icmorials of Canterbury.
®® BoLLAND., loc. cit. Cf. Oakley, Life of St. Augustin, p. 134.
Edward the Confessor, forsaken by all, is consoled by the apparition of Mildred — and the story of the solemn translation of her relics by Archbishop Lanfranc — are found grotesque incidents, such as that of the bell-ringer who, while asleep before her shrine, was woke by a box on the ear administered by the holy princess, who said to him, " This is the oratory and not the dormitory." '''^ In that wonderful efflorescence of imagination quickened by faith which for several centuries was interwoven with all Christian society, the legend had something for all — for crowned heads and common people, and could at the same time move its audience to laugh or to weep. Let us return to history by adding that William the Conqueror, when he became master of England, formally respected the right of asylum claimed by criminals at the place where the relics of Mildred lay ,• for, while destroying the Anglo-Saxon crown, he took great care to aim no blow at the persevering devotion shown by his new subjects for the saints of both sexes who had proceeded from their national dynasties.
Mildred had two sisters, whose names are conof Mildred, nectcd with hers by that eccentric taste for alliteration which characterizes the Anglo-Saxons. Their names were Milburga and Milgytha; they were both nuns like their sister, their mother, their three aunts, their grandaunt Eanswida, and their great-grandaunts Ethelburga and Eadburga.'i We are now at the fourth generation of the descendants of the first Christian king, and we may well say with Puellarum regiarum, quibus idem animus fuit, numcims iniri vix 2^oteM7^ The three daughters of the foundress of Minster were compared to Faith, Hope, and Nothing is known of Milgytha except that she ^^^^ ^ '^^^ ^^ Canterbury.'* As for Milburga, she was consecrated by the Archbishop Theodore abbess of a monastery founded beyond the Severn, upon the borders of Anglo-Saxon territory and the land still held by the Celts of Cambria. Like Slildred, she has furnished
^^ " Insestimabili decore fulgida... elata palma, alapam ei dcdit, docens oratorium, non dorniitorium, ibi esse." — Bolland., \o\. iv. July, p. 518.
" See genealogical table, Appendix, VII., p. 755.
" Ad. SS. 0. S. B., sffic. iii. 1, p. 45.
" " Nomina similliuia, par formarum gloria... mens at amor et sanctitas trium erat unica. Hinc Milburga, ut fides, inde Milgytha, ut spes, media coruscat Mildretha, ut caritas." — IBolland., loc. cit., p. 516.
''* Bolland., vol. ii. January, p. 176. more than one expressive incident to monastic legends. The young abbess was exposed, like so many of her fellows, to the pursuit of a neighboring prince, who, being determined to marry her, attempted to seize her person by force. As she fled before the sacrilegious band, a river which she had just crossed rose all at once into flood, so as to place an insurmountable barrier in the way of the too eager suitor, who thereupon gave up the pursuit. Another miracle, attributed to her, recalls the most touching of those which are mentioned in the life of Wilfrid. A poor And the widow came to her one day when she was alone in deadchud. her oratory, and, throwing herself on her knees, besought her with tears to raise up her dead child, whose poor little body she had brought with her. Milburga asked if she were mad. " Go," she said, " bury your son, and prepare to die, in your turn, like him; for we are all born but to die." " No, no," said the widow, " I will not leave you till you have restored to me my son alive." The abbess then prayed by the little corpse, and all at once she appeared to the poor mother surrounded b}^ a flame which descended from heaven, the living emblem of the fervor of her prayer. An instant after, life came back to the child. When Milburga had reached the end of her own days, which were fragrant with charity and purity, she gathered all her community around her deathbed. "Beloved sisters," she said, "I have always loved you as my own soul, and I have watched over you like a mother. I have now come to the end of my pilgrimage; I leave you to God and to the blessed Virgin Mary." With which words she died. Four hundred years 2.3d Feb., after her death her monastery, which had been '--• destroyed by the Danes, was re-established by a colony of monks from Cluny. While they were building the church, a heavenly fragrance betrayed the place of Milburga's burial. Her relics were exposed to public veneration, and an innumerable crowd hastened to visit them — old and young, rich and poor, rivalling each other in the pilgrimage. All the surrounding country was covered by a tide of pilgrims: so great, notwithstanding the double invasion of Danes and Normans and the passage of centuries, was the fidelity of the English people to the memory of the first saints of their race.'^
" " Non a te rccedam, nisi prolem moam restituas vivam.... Vos hactenus, dilcctissimas sorores, sicut animai mcje viscera dilexi." — Capgrave, ap. BOLLAND., vol. iii. February, p. 390. " Vix patuli campi capiebant ag- 57*
These three In Order not to Separate the three sisters from ffnind-"^'"^° their mother, we have introduced them after the holy nuns of the dynasty of Hengist and Ethelbert, from whom they were descended by the mother's PenJa. g-^^^ ^^^ y^y their father, who belonged to the reigning family of Mercia, they were the granddaughters of Penda, the most terrible enemy of the Christian name.''^ The Mer- In fact, a transformation far more sudden and ^^^ ^®^® Complete than that which turned the granddaughters of the Ravager and 3Ian of Fire into abbesses and saints, was wrought upon the posmshosmost ^^^-^^ ^^ ^^^^ ferocious Penda of Mercia, the war- \\^Q octogenarian, who had been the last and most formidable hero of Anglo-Saxon paganism." Of all the races descended from Odin who shared among them the sway of England, no one has furnished a larger list of nuns and saints to be inscribed in the national calendar than the descendants of Penda, as if they thus meant to pay a generous ransom for the calamities inflicted upon the new
Christians of England by their most cruel enemy .'^ We
will not return again to speak of his firstborn son, whose love for the daughter of Oswy made him the firstborn son of the Church in Mercia, the first Christian baptized in that countr}';"^ nor of his first successor Wulphere, the generous founder of Peterborough; nor of his other successor Ethelred, the devoted friend of Wilfrid, who ended his