Widu

Wulfhilda was brought up at Wilton Abbey in Wiltshire, where, it is siad, the King fell in love with her. It is generally said that this king was Edgar the Peaceable (though he is occasionally called Edward). Presents, messages, offers being of no avail, he gained over the lady's aunt, Abbess Wenflaeda of Wherwell who, feigning illness, sent for her niece to attend on her. When Wulfhilda arrived at the house, she found she had been entrapped; and, upon conversing with the King, she found his fervour so alarming, that she fled, leaving her sleeve in his hand, and escaping through the drains.

She is often, incorrectly, confounded with St. Wulfthrith.

Wulfthrith was a member of a noble Anglo-Saxon family who became a nun at Wilton, recieving the veil from the hands of St. Aethelwold, Bishop of Winchester.

Here, she was seduced by King Edgar the Peaceable and later gave birth to St. Edith of Wilton. Great was the scandal, for the nun's habit was the one thing which was to be respected. The Archbishop of Canterbury, St. Dunstan, condemned the King to abstain from wearing his crown for seven years.

After the death of his wife, Edgar tried to persuade Wulfthrith to leave her convent and marry him, but she preferred to remain with her daughter at Wilton where she made such progress in all virtues that she was chosen abbess, and eventually honoured as a saint.

Wait a moment ... so Wulfthrith was a saint, also?

The poet speaks about Higlac's wife, Higd, a wise and peaceful Queen, and contrasts her with Thrith, a haughty and vicious woman who sentenced men who gazed upon her beauty too long to death by the sword.

But Thrith had been married to Offa across the ocean, who had made her into a good, generous woman.