Having been privately baptized by St. Chad, bishop of Litchfield, about the year 670, they were both slain whilst they were at their prayers by their father’s order, who, out of political views, at that time favoured idolatry, though he afterwards did remarkable penance for this crime.
Florence of Worcester says, Wulfere was only baptized a little before his death, in 675, consequently after this murder; but Bede testifies that he was godfather to Edelwalch, king of the West-Saxons, almost twenty years before.
She afterwards employed these stones in building a church upon the spot, which became very famous for bearing the names of these martyrs who were patrons of the town, and of a priory of regular canons there.
The procurator of this house, in a journey to Rome, prevailed on the pope to enrol these two royal martyrs among the saints, and left the head of St. Wulfhad, which he had carried with him, in the church of St. Laurence at Viterbo.
(Butler 1833, p. 132) The story of Wulfhad and Ruffinus, the supposed brothers of Saint Wærburh, is almost entirely fictional and may have been composed after the Norman Conquest (1066).
[3] The brothers were said to be enshrined in the Augustinian priory of Stone founded under King Henry I of England (r. 1100–1135) which may have replaced a church dedicated to Wulfhad.
Wulfhad is not mentioned in any of the late Anglo-Saxon material that describes the family of Wulfhere and his wife Eormenhild of Kent, and other early Mercian saints.