Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1885 edition. Excerpt: ...Erconwald, for his half sister, Ethelburga, the daughter of Anna, King of the East Saxons, and which was destroyed only at the Reformation. It was to Hildelitha, the second abbess, and sister of St. Ethelburga, that St. Aldhelm dedicated his work On Virginity, and many were the royal princesses who ruled in that house. But the largest and most famous convent of its time was Wimbourne in Dorsetshire, built for his daughter, Cuthburga, by King Ina, in the days of St. Aldhelm. St. Cuthburga had a sister, Quinburga, who was co-foundress of the abbey. She herself had received the veil at Barking. Two of the nuns went at the invitation of the Martyr Apostle of Germany, St. Boniface, into Germany, where they founded several convents. The Danes destroyed the abbey, and St. Edward the Confessor restored the church and gave D it to secular canons. The magnificent building, which is still standing, remained in their hands till the Reformation, and the last Catholic Dean was Cardinal Pole, who was deprived and attainted, i.e., condemned to death, without trial, for his faith, in 1536. But he was safe from Henry the Eighth's hands. Two years later, the people of the time had to complain that the venerated relic of the skull of St. Cuthborow, as St. Cuthburga was then called, was, with its silver shrine, to be removed from the church. It is pleasant to think the Cistercian nuns of Stape Hill, near to Wimbourne, still offer to God the same incense of penance and of prayer which before the coming of the Danes ascended from the vast monastery of St. Cuthburga. Wilton was founded in the eighth century as a collegiate church by Weohstan, Ealdorman of Wiltshire, who lost his life in battle with the Mercians under Mthelmund, at Kempsford or Cummerford, near...