Audry (2)

Audry (or Etheldreda), saint and virgin, queen of Northumberland and abbess of Ely, was the daughter of Anna, king of the East Angles, who was slain in battle by the pagans in 654. Although twice married first to Tumbert, a king of the East Angles, and secondly to Egfrid, king of Northumberland- she preserved, it is said, her virgin state, and obtained leave of her second husband to retire into the Abbey of Coldingham. She afterwards built a monastery on the Isle of Ely, in the river Ouse, which had been granted to her by Tumbert. Thomas of Ely, in his Historia Eliensis, says that this took place in the year 673, and that St. Auidry collected both monks and nuns, and was made first abbessy St. Wilfrid of York. She died June 23, 679, and was honored by the Church of England as a saint within a short period of her death. See Baillet, June 23; Anglia Sacra, i, 594; Godwin, De Praes. Angl. p. 247.