A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Ethelburga
ETHELBURGA,
Commonly called "the silent," was the daughter of Ethelbert and his pious Queen Bertha; she was therefore educated in the Christian faith. It was about the year 624, her father and mother being dead, and her brother Eadbald on the throne of Kent, that Edwin, King of Northumberland, sent to demand her hand in marriage, and received it with the condition, he being a pagan, that the princess should be allowed full liberty in matters of religion. She was afterwards the means of inducing her husband to receive the rite of baptism, and of introducing Christianity among his subjects, for which she received the thanks and benedictions of Pope Boniface, whose letter to her is still extant.
The converted Edwin, by his nobleness and intrepidity of character, became renowned as the greatest prince of the Heptarchy; but his career of glory was cut short by death; he perished in the forty-eighth year of his age, in a battle fought against Penda, King of Mercia. His widow, with her two surviving children, sought the protection of her brother Eadbald, who presented her with some land in Kent, where she founded a nunnery, and devoted the rest of her life wholly to acts of charity and benevolence. She was the first widow of high rank who took the veil in England, and her high example was afterwards followed by several of the Anglo-Saxon Queens.