Nothing is known about her family, however, the fact that Henry took an interest in her, as well as her stature as a nun at an early age (as opposed to a lay sister) suggests that she was not from the lowest ranks of society.
Aelred himself was a Cistercian, and his order took a paternalistic interest in the newly founded Gilbertine monasteries after refusing to accept responsibility for them.
The Gilbertine Watton Priory was a double monastery with both male and female members, and was the only such house in the diocese of York in the twelfth century.
The lovers continued to meet secretly, until eventually the other nuns became suspicious of the repeated noise of the stones thrown by the man.
After the young man was captured, the nuns, filled with religious zeal and with a desire to avenge their injured virginity, engaged in a brutal attack of the offending brother.
Henry Murdac, Archbishop of York, who had brought her to the priory, then appeared to the nun in her sleep, instructing her to confess her sins and recite psalms.
Aelred fully accepted the authenticity of the events he described, and deemed the miraculous delivery of the child and the freeing of the nun from her fetters to be more important than the preceding acts of adultery and punishment.
Jane Patricia Freeland's 2006 translation of the work shows Aelred's ambivalence about the propriety of the nuns' behaviour toward their charge and her lover, and the apparent absence of pastoral care available to the hapless young woman at the centre of this case.