Page "Æthelthryth" Paragraph 3

Æthelthryth subsequently remarried in 660, this time to Ecgfrith, King of Northumbria again for political reasons.

Shortly after Ecgfrith's accession to the throne AD, Æthelthryth became a nun.

This step possibly led to Ecgfrith's long quarrel with Wilfrid bishop of York.

One account holds that while Ecgfrith initially agreed that Æthelthryth should continue to remain a virgin, in about 672 he wished to consummate their marriage and even attempted to bribe Wilfrid to use his influence on the queen to convince her.

This tactic failing, the king tried to take his queen from the cloister by force.

Æthelthryth fled to Ely with two faithful nuns and managed to evade capture thanks, in part, to the miraculous rising of the tide.

Some versions of the legend relate that she halted on the journey at " Stow " and sheltered under a miraculously growing ash tree which came from her staff planted in the ground.

Stow came to be known as " St Etheldred's Stow " when a church was built to commemorate this.

( It is more likely that this refers to another Stow, near Threekingham.

) Ecgfrith later married a second wife, Eormenburg, and expelled Wilfrid from his kingdom in 678.

According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Æthelthryth founded the monastery at Ely in 673 ; the monastery was later destroyed in the Danish invasion of 870.