ST AUDREY, TAWDRY AND THE INCORRUPTIBLE QUEEN
Part I
Tawdry.
There’s a word for you.
Tawdry.
Cheap.
Gaudy.
Showy.
Trying just a little too hard.
The sort of thing that glitters in the shop window and somehow looks considerably less impressive when you get it home.
Tawdry.
And tucked away inside that word is a woman.
A real woman.
A princess.
A queen.
A nun.
An abbess.
A saint.
A woman who lived thirteen hundred years ago.
A woman who married twice, apparently remained a virgin through both marriages, walked away from a king, founded one of the great religious houses of England, died of plague, was buried, dug up sixteen years later and was said not to have decomposed.
Oh, and eventually gave the English language the word tawdry.
How’s that for a life?
London Calling.
London Walks connecting.
This is London.
This is London Walks.
Streets ahead.
Story time.
History time.
And today, October 17, is St Audrey’s Day.
Well, one of them.
And St Audrey is our girl.
Except Audrey wasn’t Audrey to begin with.
Her Anglo-Saxon name was Æthelthryth.
Good luck with that after a couple of glasses of wine.
Æthelthryth.
It means something like “noble strength” or “noble might.” And over the centuries Æthelthryth became Etheldreda, and Etheldreda became Audrey.
There’s linguistic erosion for you.
Thirteen hundred years rubbing the edges off a name.
And what a woman she was.
She was born into the royal house of East Anglia, probably at Exning in Suffolk.
Her father was Anna, King of the East Angles.
And this was a family positively awash with saints.
Sisters, half-sisters, nieces. Nuns and abbesses all over the family tree.
Holiness was almost the family business.
Young Æthelthryth was married off for the first time in 652.
Her husband was Tondberht, a prince or ealdorman of the South [Geer-weh] Gyrwe.
And according to the tradition, nothing happened.
Nothing marital, anyway.
Three years later
[Tondberkht] Tondberht died.
Æthelthryth was still a virgin.
She remained a widow for another five years.
And then somebody had another go.
This time the husband was [Edge-frith] Ecgfrith.
Son of the King of Northumbria.
And significantly younger than she was.
He was about fifteen when they married.
She was probably in her twenties.
And again, Æthelthryth had no intention whatsoever of doing what queens were generally expected to do.
Produce an heir.
She had taken a vow of virginity.
And she meant it.
Now imagine this from Ecgfrith’s point of view.
You’re a young prince.
Eventually you become King of Northumbria.
You have a queen.
You need children.
Preferably sons.
And your wife says no.
Not tonight.
Not tomorrow night.
Not ever.
Twelve years.
That marriage lasted twelve years.
And still, according to the tradition, she remained a virgin.
There’s a bishop in this story as well.
Wilfrid.
Bishop Wilfrid.
Ecgfrith apparently tried to persuade Wilfrid to persuade Æthelthryth to change her mind.
And Wilfrid did pretty much the opposite.
He encouraged her.
Eventually, around 672, Æthelthryth had had enough of being a queen.
She became a nun.
Think about that.
Silks.
Jewels.
A royal household.
Status.
Power.
Gone.
Off she goes to the monastery at Coldingham.
And about a year later she heads south.
To a place she already knows.
A strange watery place of reeds and marshes and mist.
An island rising out of the fen country.
Ely.
And there she founds a monastery.
She becomes its abbess.
For about seven years she runs it.
And then, in 679, Æthelthryth dies.
Of plague, according to the early account.
She’d lived hard by monastic standards.
Woollen clothes.
Usually one meal a day.
Long hours of prayer.
She apparently bathed only before the great religious festivals.
And she asked for no grand tomb.
No royal monument.
No marble.
She wanted to be buried simply, in a wooden coffin, among her nuns.
And that might have been the end of Æthelthryth.
Except that sixteen years later they dug her up.
And now our story takes a decidedly strange turn.
It’s 695.
Her sister [SAY-aks-boorkh] Seaxburh has succeeded her as abbess.
And Æthelthryth’s body is to be moved.
Translated is the religious word.
Not translated from one language into another.
Translated from one resting place to another.
And that, incidentally, is why October 17 matters.
It became the feast of the translation of St Æthelthryth.
Her body was taken from the ordinary cemetery of the nuns and moved into the church.
So.
The grave is opened.
The coffin comes up.
Sixteen years have passed.
And according to the account, Æthelthryth is still there.
Intact.
Undecayed.
Incorrupt.
Sixteen years dead.
And looking, apparently, as though she had only just died.
For the medieval church, this was huge.
This wasn’t merely an interesting medical curiosity.
This was evidence.
Evidence of sanctity.
And, crucially, evidence of her virginity.
Her body was washed.
Dressed in fresh robes.
Placed in a marble sarcophagus.
And Æthelthryth the queen and abbess became Æthelthryth the great saint of Ely.
But we haven’t got to the best bit yet.
Because remember where we started.
Tawdry.
How on earth do we get from an incorrupt seventh-century Anglo-Saxon queen to a word meaning cheap and gaudy?
Well.
Æthelthryth becomes Etheldreda.
Etheldreda becomes Audrey.
St Audrey.
And at Ely there was a great fair associated with her.
St Audrey’s Fair.
Held on October 17.
And among the things sold there were necklaces, ribbons, little neckties and pieces of lace.
St Audrey’s lace.
Say it.
St Audrey’s lace.
Now run the words together.
St Audrey.
’T Audrey.
Tawdry.
Tawdry lace.
That really is where the word comes from. The expression is recorded from the sixteenth century, and “tawdry” eventually escaped from the lace altogether and became an adjective in its own right.
And there’s another twist.
A rather wonderful one.
Æthelthryth herself had suffered from a tumour on her neck.
And the story was that she regarded it as a kind of divine reckoning.
Because as a young princess she had enjoyed wearing necklaces.
Gold.
Jewels.
Finery around her neck.
Vanity.
And now, at the end of her life, the suffering was in exactly the same place.
Her neck.
So centuries later they’re selling necklaces and ribbons at her fair.
St Audrey’s necklaces.
St Audrey’s lace.
And eventually cheap versions appear.
Flashy stuff.
Showy stuff.
Imitation finery.
Tawdry stuff.
What a journey for a word.
From a seventh-century princess’s neck to the English language.
And here’s something else I love.
The name Æthelthryth itself means noble strength.
Which isn’t bad.
Because whatever you make of the miracles, the incorrupt body, the medieval piety, the whole great superstructure of sainthood that grew up around her, there plainly was some strength in this woman.
She lived in a world in which royal women were political currency.
Marriages made alliances.
Queens produced heirs.
That was the deal.
And twice she was married.
And twice, if the early tradition is to be believed, she said no.
Then she walked out on a king.
Put on the habit.
And built something of her own.
Ely.
She died there in 679.
But she didn’t disappear.
Far from it.
Her cult grew.
Kings knew her.
Monks celebrated her.
Pilgrims came to her shrine.
Ribbons that had touched it were treasured.
Her name entered the calendar.
Then her name entered the marketplace.
And finally, wonderfully, accidentally, almost absurdly, her name entered the dictionary.
Audrey.
St Audrey.
St Audrey’s lace.
Tawdry lace.
Tawdry.
There’s your Word of the Day.
And there, you might reasonably think, is the end of our story.
Ely.
Saint.
Shrine.
Fair.
Word.
Job done.
Except it isn’t.
Because there’s a little piece of Ely…
right here in London.
And tomorrow we’re going there.
We’re going through a gate into one of the strangest little enclaves in the capital.
There’ll be bishops.
There’ll be strawberries.
There’ll be Shakespeare.
There’ll be Elizabeth I.
There’ll be her dancing Chancellor, Christopher Hatton.
There’ll be an ancient church.
There’ll be a tiny alleyway you could walk past a hundred times and never notice.
There’ll be a pub hiding at the end of it.
And there’ll even be a story about London policemen chasing criminals and suddenly having to stop.
Because, supposedly, they’d reached somewhere London law couldn’t follow them.
Ely Place.
St Audrey’s London.
That’s tomorrow.
Part Two.
See you there.