Seaxburh of Ely - Marriage and Widowhood

Marriage and Widowhood

Seaxburh was connected with the royal family of the Magonsætan by her marriage to Eorcenberht, who was king of Kent from 640 to 664. Eorcenberht was the great-uncle of Mildburh and her sisters, the daughters of King Merewalh of the Magonsætan.

Their sons Ecgberht and Hlothhere both became kings of Kent. Their daughter Ercongota was a nun at Faremoutiers, who was eventually canonised. Eorcenberht is mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle within the annal for 640: "Then his son Eorcenberht succeeded to the kingdom; he overthrew all devil-worship in his kingdom, and was the first of the English kings to establish the Easter festival". In the same passage is the Chronicle's single reference to Seaxburh and Eorcengota, "...þaes dohter wæs ge haten Erchongata halifemne. and wundorlic man. thære modor wæs Sexburh Annan dohter East Engla ciningas" – '...his daughter was called Eorcengota, a holy and a remarkable person, whose mother was Seaxburh, daughter of Anna, king of the East Anglians'. Seaxburh and Eorcenberht had a second daughter, Ermenilda, who married Wulfhere of Mercia and after his death became a nun and was later canonised. According to Barbara Yorke, Seaxburh's marriage was itself of seminal importance in the establishment of monastic life for women during the Anglo-Saxon period, as she became an example of an ex-queen who made retreating to an nunnery a desirable royal vocation.

Eorcenberht died on July 14, 664, in an outbreak of plague that occurred that year. After her husband's death, Seaxburh remained in Kent to bring up her children. She played an important political and religious influence in the kingdom: she acted as regent for her son Ecgberht, ruling Kent until her young son came of age, and was the founder of Kent's first abbey for women at Milton. Thereafter, Seaxburh became a nun and founded the abbey of Minster-in-Sheppey. According to the Liber Eliensis, a 12th century chronicle and history written at Ely, an English source related that Seaxburh received "the veil of holiness" from Theodore, the Archbishop of Canterbury, in her church on the Isle of Sheppey and that her daughter Eormenhild also became a nun there. Seaxburh is said by her hagiographer to have sought refuge as a nun after living a secular role that she had found hard to tolerate: having reluctantly submitted to marriage, she hastened from queenhood to "a timely widowhood and a hasty withdrawal to the religious life", according to Susan Ridyard.

For a family tree of the ancestors of Seaxburh, see Wuffingas.