Werburga
was the daughter of Wulfhere, King of Mercia,
and St. Ermengilda. She was thus paternal
grandaughter of the great heathen King Penda, maternal
grandaughter of St. Sexburga, and nearly related
to all the most famous royally born abbesses of her
time.
Legend says that Wulfhere wished to promote a marriage
between his daughter, Werburga, and Werbode, a powerful
heathen thane and great military leader, to whose
brilliant services he was much indebted. However,
Werburga's brothers, Wulfad and Rufinus, objected to
their sister marrying a heathen. Unable to defeat their
opposition, Werbode poisoned the King's mind against his
sons and obtained his authority to have them arrested
for treason. Wulfhere too hastily accepted the
fabricated evidence and the guiltless young men were
condemned to death. No sooner were they executed than
the king saw, with futile clearness, the conspiracy and
treachery of which he had been the dupe. Werburga found
herself set free from the Royal command to marry a
heathen and, thus emboldened, she persuaded her father
to never again speak of giving her to any mortal
husband. She would suffer her to mourn in cloister the
crime to which he had consented and of which she was the
cause.
In AD 674 Wulfhere yielding to the wishes of his wife
and daughter and probably supported by the counsels of
St. Chad, consented with tears and regrets to
part with his daughter, not to a warrior husband, but to
Christ. It is probable that she was destined by her
mother to be a nun and was educated as such.
No place was so fit for Werburga's novitiate as Ely,
where her grandmother Sexburga was a nun and which was
then ruled by her great-aunt, Etheldreda, already
accounted a saint. At Werburga received a great
reception at Ely, several of her kin were there with
attendant lords and warriors, as well as all the men of
her father's kingdom, as if attending a great wedding
feast. Dressed in purple and silk and gold, Werburga
went with this Royal escort on horseback and in boats to
Ely. The Royal abbess, Ethelreda, with her sister,
Sexburga, and a great procession of nuns and clerics
came out to meet the King of the court and receive the
new postulant. When the two processions met, Werburga,
kneeling at the feet the venerable abbess, begged to be
received. Etheldreda gladly adopted this lamb of Christ
into her fold and strove to feed her faithfully.
On the death of Sexburga, Ermengilda became third abbess
of Ely and appointed her daughter Werburga to succeed
her as Abbess of Minster-in-Thanet. When Ermengilda
died, Werburga succeeded her as fourth Abbess of Ely.
Her father's brother and successor, Aethelred, invited
her to preside over the monasteries in his kingdom. She
ruled over those of Weedon, Hanbury and Trentham. The
church of St. John the Baptist at Chester was built for
her, but it does not seem certain that she ever lived
there. Once Werburga saw one of her overseers cruelly
beating a man. She punished him by making his head turn
right round on his shoulders. On his repentance, she
prayed for him and his head returned to its proper
position.
Edited from Agnes Dunbar's "A Dictionary of Saintly
Women" (1904).
Pictures: by Edwin
Macadam, depict the stained glass window of St Werburga
in the Parish church at Weedon Bec, and the goose which
forms the weathervane on the top of the tower. |
.JPG)
