St. Etheldreda was long remembered with affection, and was commonly spoken of as St. Audrey. The popular Pilgrims' Fair held at Ely was known at St. Audrey's Fair; and the cheap fairings bought and sold there (especially the coloured necklets of fine silk known as "St. Audrey's chains") were called, from her name, "tawdry"; and thus a new word was coined for us with a strange story of its own, a word hardly worthy of the great Abbess of the Fenland to whom it owes its origin. Centuries later, St. Audrey's Fair, held in October, had grown to be one of the most important in the land, lasting for a fortnight. By the year 1248 it had become such a centre of merchandise as to interfere with the traffic of the Fair which Henry the Third had lately established at Westminster in honour of St. Edward the Confessor; the King therefore issued a warrant interdicting the fair at Ely. This suspension meant serious loss to the Bishop, Hugh de Northwold, "who made a heavy complaint to the King concerning the matter, but he gained from him nothing except words of soothing promises of future consolation," says the chronicler. For two hundred years after the death of the foundress, the abbey of monks and nuns went on with its pious works and ways. Then, in 870, appeared the Danes, still pagans; and after working their way through Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, where they "wasted with fire and sword all that ever they came to, they brake down all the abbeys of the fens; nor did Ely, so famous of old, escape." Having laid waste Peterborough, then known as Medhampsted, they came across the fens to Ely. The abbey and all the buildings pertaining to it were burnt; the monks and nuns put to the sword. Before setting fire to the buildings the Danes had secured for themselves all they contained of value, and great was the store, for the people of the neighbourhood had brought their goods into the monastery as to a place of safety. All was seized by the invaders, and what they could not carry away they destroyed. Thus Etheldreda's Abbey, after lasting 200 years, was left a deserted ruin; but her coffin of stone escaped without injury. One of the depredators, indeed, is said to have made an attempt to break into it, with the result that his eyes started from his head, and then and there he died, as the chronicler relates. The ancient sarcophagus had proved worthy of its trust.