Baring-Gould’s sources: Not in the ancient Latin Martyrologies. But by some modern Martyrologists, the Bollandists, Wyon, Bucellinus, Menard us, Greveu, Molanus. Not in Sarum or York Kalendars, but probably on this day at Ely. Authorities: — Mention in the life of her sister, S. Etheldreda, and in the Historia Eleensis.] Anna, king of East Anglia, of the race of Uffa, and successor of the saintly Sigebert, fell on the battle-field before the ferocious heathen Penda, king of the Mercians (a.d. 654). Anna had married the sister of S. Hilda, the celebrated abbess of Whitby, 1 and by her had three daughters and a son. Those three daughters were saints, scarcely less illustrious than their aunts — Sexburga, Etheldreda, and Withburga. Sexburga, the eldest, married Ercombert, king of Kent, the one who, after Ethel bert, showed himself most zealous for the extension of the Gospel. It was she who moved him to destroy the last idols which remained in his kingdom. After twenty-four years of conjugal life she became a widow (a.d. 664), and was regent for four years of the kingdom of her son Egbert. She had two daughters, Ermenilda and Earcongotha, both numbered with the saints. Ermenilda married Wulphere, king of the Mercians, in 658, and was left a 1 This is not quite certain. According to other accounts Hereswitha, sister of S Hilda, was married not to Anna, but to his brother Ethelherc. S. Sexburga.

…widow in 675, when she retired as a nun to Sheppey, and died third abbess of Ely. Earcongotha became abbess of Faremoutier, in Brie, and died in 700. Ermenilda was the mother of S. Werburga, fourth abbess of Ely.

As soon as Egbert was old enough to reign, in 668, Sexburga resigned the regency, and taking the veil from the hands of Archbishop Theodore of Canterbury, founded a monastery in the isle of Sheppey, at the mouth of the Thames, separated from the mainland by that arm of the sea in which S. Augustine, on Christmas Day a.d. 579, had baptized ten thousand Saxons. The monastery took the name of Minster, like that which was founded at the same time by her niece Domneva in the neighbouring isle of Thanet. She there ruled a community of seventy-seven nuns, until she learned that her sister Etheldreda, having fled from her husband, King Egfrid of Northumbria [the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of northern England and south-east Scotland], according to the advice of S. Wilfred, had taken refuge in the marshes of their native country, and had there formed on the alder grown islet of Ely an asylum for souls resolute to serve God in solitude and virginity.

Sexburga then resolved to return to her own country, and become a simple nun under the crosier of her sister. “ Farewell, my daughter,” she said to her companions, who were gathered round her, “ I leave you Jesus for your protector, His holy angels for companions, and one of my daughters for your superior I go to East Anglia where I was born, in order to have my glorious sister Etheldreda for my mistress, and to take part immediately in her labours here below, that I may share her recompense above.”

She was received with enthusiasm at Ely; the whole [ luiy 6 community came forth to welcome her, and the two sister^queens wept for joy when they met. They lived together afterwards in the most tender union, rivalling each other in zeal for the service of God and the salvation of souls, Sexburga compelling herself always to take lessons of humility and fervour from her sister. Upon the death of Etheldreda, Sexburga re-placed her as abbess, and ruled the great East Anglian monastery for twenty years before she too found her rest near the tomb which she had erected to her sister.