Excerpt from Ely; St. Etheldreda and Ely Cathedral: Written for the Cambridge Church Congress Withburga and Ethelburga, also took the veil. But once more the world thrust itself upon her. The Mercian king Penda was at last overthrown by Oswy of N orthumbma, and one result of the battle of Wynwaed was the establishment of closer relations between the Christian kingdoms of Northumbria and East Anglia, between which the heathen kingdom of Mercia had long interposed. The beauty of Etheldreda attracted the admiration of Ecgfrid, son of Oswy, and since the marriage was clearly desirable on political grounds, she consented to marry him. The marriage was not happy. Etheldreda insisted that it should be of the same nature as her former marriage with Tondbert, and Wilfrid, who had great influence both with the king and the queen, supported her resolution. The royal couple separated, Ecgfrid with the intention of taking another wife, Etheldreda to take the veil in the abbey of Coldingham, near Berwick, of which her aunt Ebba was abbess. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.