Early medieval (7th century)
Feast: June 23
Married twice, she remained a virgin both times — and when her second husband tried to force the issue, she fled to a rock in the sea and waited until the tide cut him off.
Etheldreda — called Audrey in later English — was an East Anglian princess who wanted to be a nun from childhood. Her family had other plans. Her first marriage, to a minor prince, was apparently never consummated; he died after three years. Her second marriage, to Ecgfrith, the young king of Northumbria, was political, and for a while Ecgfrith accepted her desire for celibacy. But as he grew older, he changed his mind. He asked Bishop Wilfrid to persuade her to consummate the marriage, even offering him estates as a bribe. Wilfrid refused. Etheldreda refused. When Ecgfrith's patience ran out, she fled. One legend says she took shelter on a rocky headland near Coldingham, and the tide miraculously rose to cut off her pursuers. Ecgfrith eventually let her go. Around 673 she founded a double monastery at Ely, on an island in the marshy fens of East Anglia. She governed the community with fierce discipline, wearing only rough wool, eating one meal a day, and rising at midnight for prayer. She died of a throat tumor in 679 — a punishment, she said, for the necklaces she'd worn as a vain girl. When her body was exhumed sixteen years later, the tumor scar had healed and her body was incorrupt. Ely Cathedral, one of England's greatest, stands on the site of her monastery.