This saint was born about the year 540, and at the age of twenty was sent to the court of King Clothaire I., whose cousin he was. He was made Count of Anjou by King Chilperic, and was about to be married in 578, when, on the wedding morning, the bride was struck with leprosy. This incident so affected Licinius, that he renounced the world; and in the year 600, was elected bishop of Angers, where he set an example of great piety and zeal. He is called in French _Lessin_. S. ERMENILDA, Q. ABSS. (ABOUT A.D. 700.) [Wytford, Maurolycus, Carthusian Mart. of Cologne, Ferrarius and Cansius. Authorities:--Bede, John of Brompton, the Historia Eliensis, &c.] Ermenilda was the daughter of the saintly queen of Kent, Sexburga, who after the death of her husband, and regency till her son was of age, retired to Ely, where she became abbess. Ermenilda was married to Wulfhere, king of Mercia, and became the mother of S. Wereburga. She used all the influence which the love of her husband gave her to extirpate the last vestiges of idolatry in the country which had been the centre and last bulwark of Anglo-Saxon heathenism. The example of her virtues was the most effectual of sermons, and it was, above all, by her incomparable sweetness, her pity for all misfortunes, her unwearied kindness, that she touched the hearts of her subjects most. Like her mother, it was her desire to offer herself entirely to God; to whom she had finally led back her people; as soon as she became a widow, she took the veil like her mother, and under her mother--for it was to Ely that she went to live in humility and chastity, under a doubly maternal rule. The mother and daughter contended which should give the finest examples of humility and charity. At last, and still following in her mother's steps, Ermenilda, on the death of Sexburga, became abbess, and was thus the third princess of the blood of the Uffings who ruled the flourishing community of Ely. The local chronicle affirms that it was not her birth, but her virtues, and even her love of holy poverty, which made her preferred to all others by the unanimous suffrages of her numerous companions. She showed herself worthy of their choice; she was less a superior than a mother. After a life full of holiness and justice, her soul went to receive its eternal reward in heaven, and her body was buried beside those of her mother and aunt, in the church of the great abbey, which had thus the singular privilege of having for its three first abbesses, a queen of Northumbria, a queen of Kent, and a queen of Mercia. S. GREGORY II., POPE. (A.D. 731.) [Roman and other Western Martyrologies on this day, though he died on Feb. 10th.]