She was the youngest of the four sisters, all saints, daughters of
Annas the holy king of the East-Angles. In her tender years she
devoted herself to the divine service, and led an austere life in
close solitude for several years at Holkham, an estate of the king
her father, near the sea-coast in Norfolk, where a church, afterward
called Withburgstow, was built. After the death of her father she
changed her dwelling to another estate of the crown called Dereham.
This is at present a considerable market-town in Norfolk, but was
then an obscure retired place. Withburge assembled there many devout
virgins, and laid the foundation of a great church and nunnery, but
did not live to finish the buildings. Her holy death happened on
the 17th of March, 743. Her body was interred in the church-yard of
Dereham, and fifty-five years after, found uncorrupt, and translated
into the church. One hundred and seventy-six years after this, in
974, Brithnoth (the first abbot of Ely, after that house, which had
been destroyed by the Danes, was rebuilt), with the consent of king
Edgar, removed it to Ely, and deposited it near the bodies of her
two sisters. In 1106 the remains of the four saints were translated
into the new church and laid near the high altar. The bodies of SS.
Sexburga and Ermenilda were reduced to dust, except the bones. That
of St. Audry was entire, and that of St. Withburge was not only sound
but also fresh, and the limbs perfectly flexible. Warner, a monk of
Westminster, showed this to all the people, by lifting up and moving
several ways the hands, arms, and feet. Herbert bishop of Thetford,
who in 1094 translated his see to Norwich, and many other persons of
distinction, were eye-witnesses hereof. This is related by Thomas,
monk of Ely, in his history of Ely,[70] which he wrote the year
following, 1107. This author tells us, that in the place where St.
Withburge was first buried, in the church-yard of Dereham, a large
fine spring of most clear water gushes forth.[71] It is to this day
called St. Withburge’s well, was formerly very famous, and is paved,
covered, and inclosed; a stream from it forms another small well
without the church-yard. See her life, and Leland, Collect. vol. iii.
p. 167.