A queen twice married and twice a virgin, whose name gave English the word “tawdry”.
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 fled, protected by Bishop Wilfrid, 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.
A crowned abbess with crozier; often a necklace or ribbon at her throat, alluding to her illness and to the fair.