ST. ETHELDRITHA, VIRGIN CALLED ALSO ALFRIDA

SHE was daughter of Off a king of the Mercians in England, and of queen Quindreda. Having refused to marry Ethelbert king of the East-angles, from an ardent desire of consecrating herself entirely to God, she quitted the court, and retired to a small cell near Croyland in Lincolnshire, where she lived during the space of forty years. Several miracles gave testimony of her eminent sanctity; and assiduous prayer, accompanied with the practice of other Christian virtues, rendered her worthy of the society of angels, to which God was pleased to remove her about the year 834. Her relics were lost during the ravages of the Danes. See her acts; also Ingulphus Bromton. and F. Bosch the Bollandist, t. 1, Aug. p. 171.