Eadburh of Bicester

Eadburh of Bicester (also Eadburth, or Edburg, death c. 650) was an English nun, abbess, and saint from the 7th century. She has been called a "bit of a mystery"; or King Frithewald. Eadburgh was born in the now-deserted village of Quarrendon in Buckinghamshire. Her sister was Edith (or Eadith), with whom she co-founded an abbey near Aylesburg;

Eadburh probably became abbess at Aylesburg. She was also aunt of Osgyth, In 1182, her relics were moved to Bicester, when an Augustinian priory was founded by a group of Canons regular and dedicated to Saint Eadburgh and to the Virgin Mary. Many pilgrims visited Eadburh's shrine and holy well there. During the Reformation in 1536, Sir Simon Harcourt, the sheriff of Oxford, destroyed the Bicester Priory church, but he saved Eadburth's shrine and moved it to Saint Michael's Church in Stanton Harcourt so that it could be used as an Easter sepulture. Other parts of the shrine were combined into a tomb in the Harcourt chapel. In the late 1940s, there was an attempt to return the shrine to Bicester, but it was unsuccessful. Saint Eadburh's feast day is 18 July.