Saint Eanswythe, the daughter of an Anglo Saxon King and one of England's earliest Saints is also understood to have founded the first Nunnery in England in 600 AD. She was made a Saint shortly after her death, thought to be in her late teens or early twenties.
It's only now 1300 years later, a number of bones found in a wall of a Kent church, located close to the original nunnery, have been formally identified. Carbon samples taken from both tooth and bone fragments can now be positively classified as those of Saint Eanswythe.
The discovery at the church in Folkstone is being hailed as of national importance, as they are thought to be those of not only a saint but also the only surviving bones of a member of the Royal Kentish Household. The remains were found as long ago as 1885. But only now can they be identified with any real certainty.
Saint Eanswythe, the granddaughter of King Ethelbert, who was the first British King to convert to Christianity under Saint Augustine.
