Free Republic

The bones were found more than a century ago, in the Church of St. Mary and St. Eanswythe in Folkestone, a port town in southeastern England, representatives of the Diocese of Canterbury said in a statement released on March 6. Though people immediately suspected that the bones came from the young saint, the remains were never thoroughly analyzed until now. After extensive testing, archaeologists and historians have announced that the bones were indeed St. Eanswythe's, and are England's earliest verified remains of a saint. The bones were likely hidden away to protect them from destruction during the Protestant Reformation, according...

Bones discovered more than a century ago in a Kent church are almost certainly the remains of an early English saint who was the granddaughter of Ethelbert, the first English king to convert to Christianity, experts have concluded. Saint Eanswythe, the patron saint of the coastal town of Folkestone, is thought to have founded one of the first monastic communities in England, probably around AD660. She died a few years later, while still in her teens or early 20s. ...The bones, which comprised about half of a skeleton, were assumed to belong to Eanswythe. But it was not until January...