THIS saint was an English prince, in the kingdom of the West-Saxons, and
was perhaps deprived of his inheritance by some revolution in the state
or he renounced it to be more at liberty to dedicate himself to the
pursuit of Christian perfection. His three children, Winebald,
Willibald, and Warburga, are all honored as saints. Taking with him his
two sons, he undertook a pilgrimage of penance and devotion, and sailing
from Hamble-haven, landed in Neustria on the western coasts of France.
He made a considerable stay at Rouen, and made his devotions in the most
holy places that lay in his way through France. Being arrived at Lucca
in Italy, in his road to Rome, he there died suddenly, about the year
722, and was buried in St. Fridian's church there. His relics are
venerated to this day in the same place, and his festival kept at Lucca
with singular devotion. St. Richard, when living, obtained by his
prayers the recovery of his younger son Willibald, whom he laid at the
foot of a great crucifix erected in a public place in England, when the
child's life was despaired of in a grievous sickness and since his
death, many have experienced the miraculous power of his intercession
with God, especially where his relics invite the devotion of the
faithful. His festival is kept at Lucca, and his name honored in the
Roman Martyrology on the 7th of February. See the Life of St. Willibald
by his cousin, a nun of Heidenhelm, to Canisius's Lectiones Antiquae,
with the notes of Basnage. Henschenius, Feb. t. 2, p. 70.