Attributed Arms of St Audrey (Etheldreda) on Ash - Ceramic Tile

Here, against a background of the ash tree’s light-green pointed-oval leaves, spiked clusters of reddish-purple flowers, and golden-brown paddle-shaped seeds or ‘keys’, are the heraldic arms attributed to St. Audrey. According to legend, being fearful that her second husband would pursue her to claim his marital rights, St. Audrey fled the convent of Coldingham where she had taken the veil and made for the Isle of Ely. The Isle was her own. St. Audrey had received Ely as a morning gift from her first husband. Halting mid-journey at ‘Stow’ (somewhere in Lincolnshire), she planted her walking stick of ash wood in the ground while she slept. Miraculously, overnight, a great flowering ash tree sprang from it. To commemorate the event, a church, ‘St. Etheldreda’s Stow’ (now Stow St. Mary) was built at the alleged site. The ash tree (Fraxinus excelsior) is one of the most common and beloved trees of Britain. + In the language of heraldry, St. Audrey’s attributed arms are described as ‘gules, three ducal coronets, two and one or’. In plain English: The arms consist of three golden crowns—two on the top row, one on the bottom—on a red field. (‘Or’ here means gold; the crowns are self-explanatory; and, ‘gules’ means red while a field of ‘gules’ means ‘royal’ .) For three generations, the succession of abbesses at Ely was truly a family affair. The three crowns symbolise two of these generations and the three blood-related Anglo-Saxon Queens who became nuns in widowhood, retired to Ely, and served as Abbesses there. The first was St. Audrey (Etheldreda; c. 636-679) herself (the first crown). Many of the women in St. Audrey’s immediate and extended family became saints—three sisters, a half-sister, two nieces, and a great-niece. However, only three of these saints need concern us here: St. Seaxburga and St. Ermenilda (the other two crowns) and St. Werburga. St. Seaxburga (c. 675-699; Feast: July 6) was St. Audrey’s older sister and widow of Erconbert, King of Kent. She succeeded her sister the foundress as Ely’s next abbess. St. Seaxburga was succeeded by St. Ermenilda (died c. 703; Feast: February 13), widow of Wulfhere, King of Mercia, and her own blood daughter and St. Audrey’s niece. Finally, never married and never a queen—hence, no crown--St. Werburga (d. 699; Feast: February 3) succeeded. St. Werburga was great-niece of St. Audrey, granddaughter of St. Seaxburga, and only daughter of St. Ermenilda. By the by, St. Audrey’s arms are said to be attributed because they were retroactively bestowed on her and she lived before heraldry as such was formalised in the late 12th-early 13th century. + Image Credit (Foliage, Flowers, and Fruit of the Ash Tree): Extracted and recombined variously from an antique botanical illustration in G. S. Boulger’s Familiar Trees, with coloured plates by W. H. J. Boot (Second Series; London et al.: Cassell and Co., 1888), facing p. 92. + Image Credit (Arms): Saints_Aplenty adapted from E. L. Blackburne’s “On Sacred Heraldry,” p. 18 (Appendix II) of F.C. Husenbeth’s Emblems of the Saints (3rd ed.; Norwich, 1882).