Ælfflæd of Whitby
When she was about a year old, her father, King Oswiu of Northumbria, in thanksgiving for his victory over Penda of Mercia at the Battle of the Winwæd, handed her over to abbess Hilda to be brought up at Hartlepool Abbey.[6] Like her mother, Ælfflæd was associated with Bishop Wilfrid, and played a large part in the settlement which placed her nephew Osred son of Aldfrith on the throne in 705.[7] One letter of Ælfflaed, to Adolana, abbess of Pfalzel, survives in the Bonifatian correspondence, which provides rare evidence for interaction between female religious leaders in the Early Medieval period.[8] In this letter Ælfflaed seeks advice and assistance for a fellow abbess, who wished to go on pilgrimage to Rome, shedding light on Whitby's Continental connections in the years after Hilda's death.Excavations in the 1920s by Radford and Peers found several building foundations and two inscribed memorial stones believed to record the deaths of St. Ælfflaed, Abbess of Whitby, and Cyneburgh, queen of King Oswald.