Under a pious mother, Werburga grew up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord; and from an early age her great desire was to embrace the religious life, and spend her days in the peace of the cloister. It was a lawless and godless time. Men were coarse and cruel, the palace was a scene of drunkenness and riot, from which her gentle spirit shrank. She is described as being very lovely and sweet in manner. She daily assisted with her mother at Divine Service, and spent much of her time in reading and in prayer. When she came of age to be married, her hand was sought by one Werebod, a thane about the court, but she refused him. Now we come to a story about which some difficulties exist. In the twelfth century one Robert of Swaffham wrote an account of the death of Rufinus and Wulfhad, sons of Wulfhere and brothers of S. Werburga. The authority is late, too late to be trusted, as we do not know whence the writer drew his narrative. According to this story, when Rufinus and Wulfhad heard of Werebod’s proposal, they scouted it, and told him to his face that he was not worthy to have her. Werebod dissembled his mortification, and waited an opportunity for revenge. The princes were then at Stone, in Staffordshire, where Wulfhere had a palace. One day Wulfhad was out hunting, when the stag he was pursuing brought him to the cell of S. Ceadda or Chad, who exhorted him to receive the faith of Christ and be baptised. Wulfhad answered that he would do so if the stag he had been pursuing would come of its own accord, with a rope round its neck, and present itself before him. S. Chad prayed, and the stag bounded through the bushes to the spot, with the rope as Wulfhad desired. S. Chad baptised the prince, and next morning communicated him. Rufinus was led by his brother to receive holy baptism, and when Werebod learned this, he told the king of it, and Wulfhere, in a fit of fury, pursued his sons to the cell of S. Chad, and killed them with his own hands.