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Why, the nuns, whom the holy Sexburga placed up yonder, had not as much loneliness; don't you think the place was admirably adapted for an elopement?
The importance of this festival is sometimes held to account for the fact that the Feast of S. Luke, on October 18th, is not preceded by a fast. But as no fast is assigned to the vigils of the Conversion of S. Paul, S. Mark, or Saints Philip and James, it is questionable if this opinion is sound. Upon the death of S. Sexburga, in 699, her body was laid in the church next to that of her sister.
It is said to have been in a very flourishing condition when the Danes came to destroy it; and there is no hint anywhere that there was not a continuous succession of abbesses during the whole period. S. Sexburga, the elder sister of the foundress, succeeded her as abbess.
On October 17 in that year the remains of Saints Etheldreda, Sexburga, Ermenilda, and Withburga were solemnly removed to the new choir, and re-interred in front of the high altar. For some reason not explained there was no such attendance of high ecclesiastical dignitaries as was usual on such occasions.
She was the widowed queen of Ercombert, King of Kent, and had herself founded the monastery of Sheppey, at the place now known as Minster, and set over it her daughter Ermenilda, another widowed queen. S. Sexburga joined the house at Ely, and had resided there some time before her sister's death.
But we find no churches dedicated to any of the four in the isle except those previously named as dedicated to S. Etheldreda, the cathedral, Histon, and a chapel at Swaffham Prior. Minster Church, in Kent, is dedicated to Saints Mary and Sexburga.
Although nothing now exists except the church, a few broken walls, and a modernised house, formed out of one of the principal entrances to what was once an extensive range of monastic buildings; yet at the time of which we treat, the ruins of the nunnery, founded by Sexburga, the widow of Ercombert, King of Kent, extended down the rising ground, presenting many picturesque points of view from the small but highly-cultivated pleasure grounds of Cecil Place.
In there is a dignified figure probably S. Sexburga standing behind the priest who is ministering to the dying abbess. In the kneeling figure is S. Benedict handling the fetters. Until the plain colour-wash with which the vault had been covered was removed in 1850 there was no knowledge of what had been the character of the original decoration.
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