Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 51.djvu/300

 , and St. Ermenhilda or Eormenhild, queen of Wulfhere, king of Mercia, and abbess of Ely. After her husband's death she is said to have ruled for a time for her son Egbert. She founded a monastery for nuns in the isle of Sheppey, it is said for, or in memory of, her husband, which came to be called Minster, and, having received the veil from Archbishop Theodoric, ruled it as abbess. After a while—about 675—she entered the monastery of Ely, desiring to be instructed by her sister Etheldreda, then abbess there. The Ely historian records a speech that she is supposed to have made to her nuns in Sheppey, bidding them farewell, and appointing her daughter Ermenhilda to succeed her as abbess. On the death of Etheldreda, probably in 679, Sexburga was chosen to succeed her. Sixteen years later, in 695, she built a shrine for Etheldreda's body, which she laid in a white marble coffin, procured from the ruined city of Grantchester. After a long life she died, and was buried near her sister, the supposed year of her death being 699, and her day in the calendar 6 July. Her daughter Ermenhilda succeeded her as abbess, being herself succeeded at Sheppey by her own daughter, St. or Werburh [q. v.] The life of Sexburga, printed in Capgrave's ‘Nova Legenda’ and the ‘Acta Sanctorum,’ is taken from Cotton. MS. Tib. E. 1. There is another Latin life in a twelfth-century manuscript, Cotton MS. Calig. A. viii., and a fragment of an English life of two folios in Lambeth MS. 427.

 SEXBY, EDWARD (d. 1658), conspirator, was a native of Suffolk, and entered Cromwell's regiment of horse about 1643. In 1647, being still a private in the same regiment, now commanded by Fairfax, he took a leading part in the movement against disbanding the army, and was one of the three soldiers charged with the letter from the army to their generals which Skippon brought before the House of Commons on 30 April 1647 (, vi. 474; Clarke Papers, i. 430). He became one of the leaders of the ‘agitators,’ and acted as their chief spokesman in the debates of the army council in October 1647 (ib. i. 83). His speeches were very vigorous and effective, opposing all compromise with the king and demanding the immediate establishment of manhood suffrage (ib. i. 227, 322, 329, 377).

Sexby appears to have left the army about the close of 1647, but happening to be present at the battle of Preston, with a letter from John Lilburne to Cromwell, he was entrusted with a despatch from Cromwell to the speaker announcing his victory. The House of Commons voted him 100l. as a reward (ib. ii. 254; Commons' Journals, v. 680). In February 1649 parliament entrusted him with the duty of arresting the Scottish commissioners, for which he was ordered 20l. (ib. vi. 152). He was also appointed governor of Portland, is henceforth described as Captain Sexby, and was more than once charged with commissions requiring courage and dexterity (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1649–50, pp. 135, 155, 531). In June 1650, at Cromwell's suggestion, he was charged to raise a foot regiment for service in Ireland, but when completed it was ordered to Scotland. Sexby, who held the rank first of lieutenant-colonel and then of colonel, took part with his regiment in the siege of Tantallon Castle in February 1651 (ib. 1650, pp. 206, 332, 352; Mecurius Politicus, p. 621). In June 1651 he was tried by court-martial for detaining the pay of his soldiers, and lost his commission (Clarke MSS.)

A few months later Cromwell and the intelligence committee of the council of state sent Sexby on a mission to France. He was charged to give an account of the political condition and the temper of the people. He negotiated with the Prince de Conti and the Frondeurs of Guienne, to whom he proposed an adaptation of the ‘Agreement of the People’ as the basis of a republican constitution for France, and with the Huguenots of Languedoc. One of his emissaries was captured, and Sexby had a narrow escape himself, if Ludlow is to be trusted (, Memoirs, i. 415; Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1654, p. 160; Journal of Joachim Hane, 1896, pp. xiv–xvii). He returned to England about August 1653, and on 23 Aug. 1654 was ordered 1,000l. for his expenses during his mission.

Sexby was eager for an Anglo-Spanish league against France, and hoped to obtain the command of the levies which it was proposed to send to the support of the Frondeurs. Cromwell's abandonment of the projects against France, and still more his assumption of the protectorate, caused a breach between Sexby and the Protector. The former allied himself with the disaffected republicans, disseminated pamphlets against the Protector, and took a leading part in the schemes for a joint rising of royalists and