14 THE HISTORY OF NEWMARKET. [Book I. 



curious manuscripts extant in this country, forms the 

 precious repository of her achievements,* 



Now, havinsf regard to the fact that in com- 

 paratively modern times royalty was so closely 

 associated with Newmarket, we are induced to give 

 a brief memoir of St. Etheldreda,^ as she was one of 

 the earliest sovereigns connected with the Town, some 

 six hundred years before it was even christened ; and 

 may she not without profanity be termed the Patron 

 Saint of the Metropolis of the Turf ? 



1 Born at Exiling, about the year 630, Etheldreda, daughter 

 of Anna, king of the East- Angles, and Heresvvitha his queen, 

 was bred and educated there under the supervision of her 

 illustrious parents, from whom she received the first im- 

 pressions of religion and virtue. In her childhood, the mild- 

 ness of her temper, and innocence of behaviour, joined with 

 the beauty of her person, rendered her the delight of all that 

 were about her ; but that which was most observable in her 

 constitution at that time of her life, was a serious turn of 

 mind, and a bent to religious duties. It was very early that 

 she devoted herself to the service of God, and had formed in 

 her mind a design of preserving in a virgin state during life, 

 a species of piety in that age held in high esteem, and 

 requisite to Christian perfection, which this princess was 

 generally thought to have carried to a pitch of heroism. 



The amiableness of her person, heightened by those excel- 

 lent endowments of mind she was possessed of, in a court 

 where the most exalted piety and the strictest virtue were 

 considered as the highest and noblest accomplishments, could 

 not fail of exciting the admiration of many, and made her 

 name celebrated in the other Saxon courts. There were 

 several persons of the highest rank who became suitors for 



* The Liber Eliensis . See Wharton, vol. i., pp. 593 — 688 ; Gale, vol. i. 

 pp. 463-525- 



