Page:A Dictionary of Saintly Women Volume 1.djvu/262

248 : Sons—

Alchfrid, reigned with his father, 688; m..

Egfrid, king, 670-685; m., 1st, ; 2nd, Ermenburga.

Aldfrid, king, 685-705; m..

Alfwin, killed, 679.

Daughters—

Alchfleda, m. Peada, son of Penda.

, abbess of Whitby.

, + 679; m. Ethelred, king of Mercia.

It is not certain that Eanfleda was the mother of any of the children of Oswy, except Elfleda.

Bede, iii. 14. Montalembert, Monks of the West. Analecta, iii., year 1824. Strutt.

St Eanswith, or, Ang. 31. + c. 640. Abbess and founder of Folkestone. Daughter of Eadbald, king of Kent (616-640), and Emma, a princess of France. Represented carrying, two fishes.

Eanswith was sister of the religions King Ercombert, and niece of, queen of Northumberland. From her infancy she despised all that usually amuses and interests children, and grew up, devoting herself to a religious life. She prevailed on her father to allow her to decline all alliances proposed for her, and retired, with his consent, to a lonely place between Folkestone and the sea, accompanied by other young women of kindred inclination. There King Eadbald built a church and a monastery for her.

St. Eanswith made her monastery a great agricultural establishment, as well as an ascetic sanctuary and literary school. She died young, and was buried in her own church. There are many legends about her miraculous powers. Her monastery was built on a cliff, and water being wanted there, she dug a canal with the tip of her crozier, and made the water run uphill. She miraculously lengthened a beam which the carpenters had made too short.

After her death the encroaching sea ruined the buildings, and the body of the saint was moved to the church at Folkestone, which Eadbald had built in honour of St. Peter. In process of time, by the devotion of the people to her memory, the church was called St. Eanswide's. AA.SS. Capgrave. Butler.

St. Earcongoda, or,.

St Eargneath, Jan. 8. Ancient Irish. Perhaps same as, Oct. 30. AA.SS.

St. Eartongatha,.

St. Eatha,.

St. Ebba (1), Aug. 25, V. + 683 or 679. Abbess. O.S.B. Founder of Coldinghame and Ebbchester.

Two saints of the name of Ebba were abbesses of the double Benedictine monastery of Colud, or Coldinghame, near Berwick, with an interval of about two hundred years. The first was daughter of Ethelfrid the ravager, granddaughter of Ida the burner, sister of St. Oswald (634-642) and Oswin, kings of Northumbria; and on her mother's side, niece of Edwin, king of Northumbria.

On the death of Ethelfrid, Edwin, chief of the rival race of Deira, became king, and Ebba, then about ten years old, fled with her seven brothers to Scotland. They were hospitably received by Donald Brek, the king, and there they became Christians.

Adan, or Edan, another Scottish king, wished to marry Ebba, and her brothers favoured his suit, but Ebba, bent on a religious and celibate life, took the veil from St. Finan, bishop of Lindisfarne (652-661). Edan followed her, intending to take her by force and make her his queen, but Ebba betook herself to a high rock, round which, at her prayer, a high tide ran for three days, forming a perfect defence against her pursuers. Her brother Oswy, who succeeded Oswald (642), gave her an old Roman camp. There she founded her first monastery, called Ebbchester (Ebba's castle or camp), in the county of Durham.

She built her greater and more famous monastery on a promontory in Berwickshire, which rises on three of its sides perpendicularly from the sea, and was cut off from the land on the fourth side by an almost impassable morass, further strengthened by a high wall. The