Attributed Arms of St. Etheldreda (Audrey) - 1-Up

In the language of heraldry, St. Etheldreda’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. Etheldreda (or Audrey; c. 636-679) herself (the first crown). Many of the women in St. Etheldreda’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. Etheldreda’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. Etheldreda’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. Etheldreda, granddaughter of St. Seaxburga, and only daughter of St. Ermenilda. By the by, St. Etheldreda’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 (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).