Anna of East Anglia - Descendants

Descendants

Anna's children were all canonised. The eldest, Seaxburh, was the wife of Eorcenberht of Kent, who from 664, until her son Ecgberht came of age, ruled Kent. Her sister Æthelthryth, according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, founded the monastery at Ely in 673. Another daughter, Æthelburh, spent her life at the nunnery of Faremoutiers. Anna's son, Jurmin, was of warrior age in 653 when he was killed in battle.

By tradition, Anna is said to have had a fourth daughter, Wihtburh, an abbess at Dereham (or possibly West Dereham), where there was a royal double monastery. She may never have existed: Bede fails to mention her and she first appears in a calendar in the late 10th century Bosworth Psalter. She may have been a character specifically created by the religious community at Ely, where her remains were supposed to have been taken after being stolen from Dereham and subsequently used as visual proof of the incorruptibility of a saint's body, a substitute for her sister Æthelthryth, whose body had to remain unexamined in her tomb. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle mentions her death when it records that her body was found uncorrupted in 798, 55 years after she died. The resulting date for her death of 743 is much too late for her to have been a sister of Æthelthryth, who was born in 636.