Æthelthryth of Ely

Daughter of a king of East Anglia, she was married twice for political reasons and obtained from both husbands, says Bede writing half a century after her, that she remain a virgin. The second, King Ecgfrith of Northumbria, tired of it after twelve years and meant to press his rights; she obtained from him, by dint of insistence, leave to go, received the veil from Bishop Wilfrid at Coldingham, and founded in 673 the double abbey of Ely, of which she was abbess. There she lived hard — one meal a day, coarse woollen clothes — and died in 679 of a tumour in the neck that she said she deserved for the necklaces worn in her youth. St Audrey's fair at Ely sold cheap neck-ribbons: from “St Audrey's lace” English drew tawdry, meaning gaudy.