Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 16.djvu/323

 joint abbess with her daughter Ælflæd. She was alive in 685, and was buried at Whitby. Her day in the calendar is 5 Dec.

(654–714?) abbess of Whitby, daughter of Oswiu and Eanflæd, was born in 654, and when scarcely a year old was dedicated to the service of God by her father in thankfulness for the victory he gained over Penda in 655. She was accordingly sent with a dower of twelve hides (‘possessiones familiarum’) to the monastery of Hartlepool, Durham, over which the abbess Hild was then presiding. After about two years she moved with Hild to Whitby, and on Hild's death in 680 succeeded her as abbess of that house (Hist. Eccl. iii. 24). In 685 Bishop Trumwini with a few of his monks came to Whitby after his monastery at Abercorn had been seized by the Picts, and Æflæd, who at that time shared the government of the abbey with her mother Eanflæd, was much strengthened and comforted by his counsel (ib. iv. c. 26). When Archbishop Theodore was reconciled to Wilfrith in 686 he wrote to Ælflæd, exhorting her to be at peace with him also (, c. 43). Æflæd evidently followed his orders, for at the Northumbrian synod held on the Nidd in 705 to decide on his claims she solemnly declared that when she was with her brother, King Ealdfrith [see ], during his last sickness that same year, he had vowed to God and St. Peter that if he lived he would obey the apostolic see in Wilfrith's matter, and had bidden her if he died to charge his heir to do so. Ælflæd died in 714, at the age of sixty. She was buried at Whitby, and William of Malmesbury records the finding and translation of her body. Her day is 11 April (Acta SS. Bolland. Feb. ii. 186).

[Bædæ Historia Ecclesiastica, ii. 9, 20, iii. 24, 25, iv. 26 (Engl. Hist. Soc.); Eddius, c. 60; Historians of York, i. (Rolls Ser.); Acta SS. Feb. ii. p. 178 sq.; William of Malmesbury, Gesta Pontiff. 234, 242, 254 (Rolls Ser.)] 

EARDLEY, CULLING EARDLEY (1805–1863), religious philanthropist, born 21 April 1805, was the only son of Sir Culling Smith (second baronet), by Charlotte Elizabeth, daughter of Lord Eardley. He succeeded to the baronetcy in 1829 and took the name of Eardley in 1847, on becoming the representative of the Eardley family. He was educated at Eton and at Oriel College. He married in 1832 Isabella, daughter of Mr. J. W. Carr of Eshott, Northumberland, solicitor to the excise, two other daughters of whom married respectively Dr. Lushington and Lord Cranworth. In 1830 he entered parliament as member for Pontefract, but did not seek re-election in 1831. He continued, however, to support the liberal party throughout his life. He was an unsuccessful candidate for Pontefract in 1837 on ‘purity’ principles; in 1846 for Edinburgh in opposition to Macaulay, appointed paymaster-general, the contest turning on the question of the Maynooth grant, which Eardley desired to suppress; and again in 1848 for the West Riding of Yorkshire, against Edward Denison.

In 1846 he became the founder of the Evangelical Alliance, which was designed to form a bond of union between protestant christian communities and to promote religious liberty throughout the world. Under his direction the Alliance obtained the liberation of many persons imprisoned for conscience' sake, such as the Madiai at Florence in 1852. The Alliance was successful in obtaining firmans in favour of religious liberty from the sultan in 1856, and shortly after from the khedive; the abolition of the penal laws against Roman catholics in Sweden in 1858, the liberation of the Jewish child Mortara, who had been taken from his parents to be brought up as a Roman catholic in 1859, and the independence of the Bulgarian church in 1861. The society held congresses of the members of protestant churches in various European capitals. That at Berlin in the autumn of 1857 was connected with the changes, ecclesiastical and political, advocated by Baron Bunsen in the Prussian government; the king, Frederick William IV, and Bunsen attended the meetings, and Eardley was invited to a long and important interview with the king. His last effort was for the relief of Matamoros and his companions, who had been imprisoned by the Spanish government for their religious opinions, and whose liberation was effected on the very day of Eardley's death.

Eardley desired to see the church of England disestablished, and its liturgy reformed in a protestant sense; but he built the church of All Saints at Belvedere, near Erith, Kent, and had it consecrated in 1861. He was treasurer of the London Missionary Society, and of the fund for the relief of the christians in the Lebanon after the massacres there in 1861, and took a prominent part in many beneficent movements, both religious and social, such as the introduction of the new poor law in 1834. He was greatly interested in christian missions abroad, and in the condition of the Jews throughout the world, being himself descended on his mother's side from the Jewish family of Abudiente or Gideon. He was the friend of John Williams of Erromanga, of Moffat and Livingstone, of Ridley Herschell (father of Lord Herschell) and Sir Moses Montefiore. 