THE two first were daughters of Penda, the cruel pagan king of Mercia,
and sisters to three successive Christian kings, Peada, Wulfere, and
Ethelred, and to the pious prince Merowald. Kyneburge, as Bede informs
us,[1] was married to Alefrid, eldest sort of Oswi, and in his father's
life-time king of Bernicia. They are said to have lived in perpetual
continency. By his death she was left a widow in the bloom of life, and,
renouncing the world, governed a nunnery which she built; or, according
to others, found built by her brother Wulfere, in a moist fenny place,
on the confines of the counties of Huntingdon and Northampton, then
called Dormundcaster, afterwards, from her, Kyneburgecaster, now Caster.
The author of her life in Capgrave says, that she lived here a mirror of
all sanctity, and that no words can express the bowels of charity with
which she cherished the souls which served God under her care; and how
watchful she was over their comportment, and how zealous in instructing
and exhorting them; and with what floods of tears she implored for them
the divine grace and mercy. She had a wonderful compassion for the poor,
and strongly exhorted her royal brothers {523} to alms-giving and works
of mercy. Kyneswide and Kynedride (though many confounded the latter
with St. Kyneburge) were also daughters of Penda, left very young at his
death. By an early consecration of their virginity to God, they devoted
themselves to his service, and both embraced a religious state.
Kyneswide took the holy veil in the monastery of Dormundcaster.
The bodies of these saints were translated to Peterborough, where their
festival was kept on the 6th of March, together with that of Saint
Tibba, a holy virgin, their kinswoman, who, having spent many years in
solitude and devotion, passed to glory on the 13th of December. Camden
informs us, that she was honored with particular devotion at Rihal, a
town near the river Wash, in Rutlandshire. See Ingulphus, Hist. p. 850;
Will. of Malmesbury l. 4, de Pontif. p. 29; Capgrave and Harpsfield,
saec. 7, c. 23.
Footnotes:
1. Bede Hist. l. 3, c. 21.
2. Camdem in Rutlandshire.