“But now I shewe you playnly my true mynde,
My purpose was never maryed for to be;
A lorde I have chosen, Redeemer of Mankynde
Jhesu the Second Persone in Trynyte
To be my Spouse.”
The suit of Warbode, a powerful knight and chief steward in her father’s household, was attended with disastrous results. He had gained an evil influence over King Wulfhere, and induced him, if not to become an actual apostate, to adopt a distinctly hostile attitude to Christianity. When his suit, though favoured by his master, is declined by St. Werburgh, he retires in wrath and plots revenge. He poisons the King’s mind, and persuades him that his sons Wulfade and Ruffyn are plotting against him, leads him into the forest, where they are found in St. Chad’s cell being instructed by the good Bishop in the Christian faith; and then in his blind rage the King slays them both, and rushes back to his castle. No sooner did he return than he was seized with sore pains, the mark of God’s vengeance. Stung with remorse, he repented of his apostasy; repaired to St. Chad; professed his contrition; promised to destroy all idols and temples in his realm and to build monasteries; and founded the Abbey of Peterborough and a priory at Stone—
“To the honour of God, and these martyrs twayne.”
And now St. Werburgh begs her father to be allowed to become “a religious,” and to enter the Abbey of Ely, where her great-aunt, St. Etheldreda (or Awdry) was the Abbess. Wulfhere is reluctant and slow to consent, but at length he yields; and, when the matter was once settled, does his part nobly.
After her year of probation, St. Werburgh made her holy profession with great solemnity, and her biographer holds her up to the women of his day as an example of virtue and humility.
On the death of Wulfhere, his widow, Ermenhild, herself repaired to the convent of Ely, where her mother, St. Sexburga, had succeeded her sister, St. Etheldreda, as Abbess, and vied with her daughter in piety and devotion. Wulfhere was succeeded as king by his brother, Ethelred, to whom, according to Giraldus Cambrensis, is due the building in 689 of the Monastery of St. John the Baptist in Chester. Ethelred fully appreciated his niece’s character, and, seeing her holy conversation, made her Lady and President at Weedon, Trentham, and Hanbury, thus making her ruler of the nuns within his realm. He himself also took the vows and became a monk, resigning the crown to his nephew, Cenred, St. Werburgh’s brother, who, after a short reign of five years, followed his uncle’s example; went to Rome the year of grace 708, and was “professed to Saint Benette’s religion,” and “frome this lyfe transitory, with vertu departed to eternal glory.”