(ABOUT A.D. 700.)
[Wytford, Maurolycus, Carthusian Mart. of Cologne, Ferrarius and
Cansius. Authorities:--Bede, John of Brompton, the Historia
Eliensis, &c.]
Ermenilda was the daughter of the saintly queen of Kent, Sexburga, who
after the death of her husband, and regency till her son was of age,
retired to Ely, where she became abbess. Ermenilda was married to
Wulfhere, king of Mercia, and became the mother of S. Wereburga. She
used all the influence which the love of her husband gave her to
extirpate the last vestiges of idolatry in the country which had been
the centre and last bulwark of Anglo-Saxon heathenism. The example of
her virtues was the most effectual of sermons, and it was, above all,
by her incomparable sweetness, her pity for all misfortunes, her
unwearied kindness, that she touched the hearts of her subjects most.
Like her mother, it was her desire to offer herself entirely to God;
to whom she had finally led back her people; as soon as she became a
widow, she took the veil like her mother, and under her mother--for it
was to Ely that she went to live in humility and chastity, under a
doubly maternal rule. The mother and daughter contended which should
give the finest examples of humility and charity. At last, and still
following in her mother's steps, Ermenilda, on the death of Sexburga,
became abbess, and was thus the third princess of the blood of the
Uffings who ruled the flourishing community of Ely. The local
chronicle affirms that it was not her birth, but her virtues, and even
her love of holy poverty, which made her preferred to all others by
the unanimous suffrages of her numerous companions. She showed herself
worthy of their choice; she was less a superior than a mother. After a
life full of holiness and justice, her soul went to receive its
eternal reward in heaven, and her body was buried beside those of her
mother and aunt, in the church of the great abbey, which had thus the
singular privilege of having for its three first abbesses, a queen of
Northumbria, a queen of Kent, and a queen of Mercia.