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300 300 ST. WENEFREDA Patron of the town of March in Cam- bridgeshire. She was perhaps the fonnder and abbess of the choroh that bears her name at March, and of a nnnnery that is believed to have ad- joined it. Miss Amold-Forster, Dedi- cations. Stanton. Mr. Baring-Gonld thinks her name is Gwendraeth ; if so, she is Celtic. Her relics and those of 8t. Pandiona are at Eltisley, Cambs. St. Wenefreda, or Wenefride, Wi- nifred. St. Weneu, Vbbp. St. Wenn or Gwen, called a queen. One of her three husbands was Selyf, son of Geraint, one of King Arthur's Knights of the Bound Table. She had a son St. Cuby, and by another marriage she was mother of St Cadfan. She is called a sister of St. Nonna, mother of St David. Baring-Gould, Book of the West, Compare St. Euriella of Bre- tagne. St. Wennap, Veep. St. Wenodoc, perhaps same as GWBNDDYDD. St. Wereburga (i), Werburo, or Verbourg, Feb. 3, V. + 699 or 700, fourth abbess of Ely. Patron of Chester. Abbess of Weedon, Hanbury, Trentham and Minster. Daughter of Wulphere, king of Mercia; her mother was St. Ermenilda. She was thus granddaughter of the great heathen King Penda, and of St. Sbxburga, and nearly related to all the most famous royally bom abbesses of her time. Legend says that Wulphere wished to promote a marriage between his daughter Wereburga and Werebode, a powerful heathen Thane and great military leader, to whose brilliant services he was much indebted. Wereburga's brothers Wulfad and Bufinus objected to their sister marrying a heathen. Werebode, unable to defeat their opposition, poisoned the king's mind against his sons, and obtained his authority to have them arrested for treason. Wulphere too hastily accepted the 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. Wereburga found herself set free from the royal command to marry a heathen, and was emboldened to beg that her fftther would never again speak of giving her to any mortal husband, but would suffer her to mourn in a cloister the crime to which he had con- sented and of which she was the cause. In 674 Wulphere, yielding to the wishes of his wife and daughter and pro- bably 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 ntm and was educated as such. No place was so fit for her no- vitiate as Ely, where her grandmother Sexburoa was a ntm, and which was then ruled by her greatr-aunt Ethelbkda, already accounted a saint. At Were- burga's reception at Ely, several kings with their attendant lords and warriors were present, as well as all the chief men of her father's kingdom, as if attend- ing a great wedding feast. Dressed in purple and silk and gold, Wereburga went with this royal escort on horsebadc and in boats to Ely. The royal abbess Ethelredar with her sister Sexburga and a great procession of nuns and clerics came out to meet the king of the country and receive the new postulant. When the two processions met, Were- burga, kneeling at the feet of the vener- able abbess, begged to be received as a penitent. Ethelreda gladly adopted into her fold this lamb of Christ and strove to feed her faithfully. On the death of Sexburga, Ermenilda became third abbess of Ely and appointed her daughter Wereburga to succeed her as abbess of Minster. When Ermenilda died, Wereburga succeeded her as fourth abbess of Ely. Her father's brother and suocessor Ethelred 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. She died at her own monastery of Trentham but the monks of Hanbury carried off her body to enrich their own