Her tenure as abbess was from 1534 to 25 March 1539, when she surrendered the abbey to the commissioners of King Henry VIII of England during the Dissolution of the Monasteries.

Cecily was born on an unknown date, the daughter of Roger Bodenham of Rotherwas, Herefordshire and Joane Bromwich.

Cecily was known to both King Henry and Queen Anne Boleyn; and she paid the sum of £100 to Thomas Cromwell to secure her election as abbess.

[2] As abbess of Wilton, Cecily held an entire barony from the king, which was a privilege shared by three other English nunneries: Shaftesbury, Barking and St. Mary, Winchester.

[3] A nun at the abbey wrote in her diary complaining of Cecily Bodenham's ready acquiescence to King Henry's Acts with this passage: Cecily was amply awarded with a generous pension of £100 and a property at Fovant in Wiltshire, with an orchard, gardens, three acres of meadow and one load of wood per annum from Fovant Woods.