St.Felix, who was brought from the Burgundian territory by Sigebert, the learned, one of the East Anglian Kings, and who was the first Bishop of the East Angles, is said to have founded a monastery here about AD. 630, and to have made Soham the seat of his diocese prior to the removal of the see to Dunwich, (dun, a hill-fortress, wich or wick, a bay; sometimes called Dommoc,) a seaport on the coast of Suffolk, now almost annihilated by the ocean. Under the Conqueror, Dunwich, though no longer an Episcopal city, had 236 burgesses and 100 poor; and it was prosperous under Henry II. It is reported to have had fifty religious foundations, including Churches, Chapels, Priories, and Hospitals. Camden, writing in 1607, says it then lay "in solitude and desolation," the greater part being submerged. St. Felix was Bishop seventeen years, having been consecrated about 631 by Archbishop Honorius. His episcopate was so full of "happiness" for the cause of Christianity that the historian Bede describes his work with an allusion to the good omen of his name, ( Felix--happy). Bede says of him that " he delivered all the province of East Anglia from long-standing unrighteousness and unhappiness;" as "a pious cultivator of the spiritual field, he found abundant faith in a believing people." It has been said that in no part of England was Christianity more favourably introduced. An important feature of his mission was the combination of education with religion by means of a school such as existed at Canterbury in connection with the house of SS. Peter and Paul. This school, for which Felix provided teachers "after the model of Kent" was probably attached to the primitive East Anglian Cathedral either at Dunwich or Soham. The labours of St. Felix as an evangelizer, and educator, and a church ruler, were closed on the 8th of March, 647. He was buried in his own city of Dunwich; and it is interesting to find the memory of the apostle of East Anglia preserved in the town of Felixstowe, (the dwelling of Felix) to the south-east of Ipswich, but in that of a Yorkshire village, far away in the north--Feliskirk, (the church of Felix) near Thirsk. His remains were shortly afterwards removed to Soham and interred in the chancel of the cathedral church which he had founded. This step was doubtless taken lest the Danes should get possession of them. In King Canute's time, about 1031, they were again removed by a monk named Etheric to Ramsey (Ramsey is derived from the Gaelic word "ruimne" a marsh) and were solemnly enshrined by Abbot Ethelstan.

"In those days (circa. 1020) St. Felix, formerly Bishop of East Anglia, lay buried in the royal manor of Soham. For at this place the saint while still alive had built and dedicated a beautiful church and gathered together a goodly company of monks. These monks subsequently, after their good father was dead, seizing an opportunity for which they had long waited, carried away his precious remains from Dunwich, the seat of his bishopric where he had been buried, and laid them with great honour in their own church at Soham. Afterwards however when this same church (or monastery) had been utterly destroyed and the monks killed by the Danes, who ravaged the country in that quarter, this saintly man had met with less reverence and less honour. This continued up to the time of King Canute, when Etheric hearing of it and persuading the king by his entreaties to consent to his plan, pointed out to Abbot Athelstan and the monks of Ramsey how by the expenditure of a little labour they might win for themselves inexhaustible riches and so urged them by the spur of self-interest to carry out his purpose.

Athelstan therefore taking with him Algerinus his prior at that time, and a party of pious monks, set out by water for the place which contained a relic (or coffin ?) of such value, and overawing by the combined authority of King and Bishop the resistance of those who were for opposing him, he placed the sacred remains and bones of the saint on board and began his voyage homeward to Ramsey amid the strains of joyous psalmody. The men of Ely however on hearing of this, grudging us so valuable a relic, manned their boats with a strong band, hoping by their large numbers to carry off from the smaller party the remains which they had removed from Soham. In order however that it might be clearly seen that the removal was taking place rather by the Divine than by any human wishes, it came to pass that just as the ships of either party were approaching one another under a bright and cloudless sky, suddenly, to the discomfiture of the larger force and the benefit of the smaller, a dense fog arose which separated the two parties; and also, while their adversaries were vainly wandering in different directions, our boat was carried onward in a straight course and safely deposited by the aiding waters on the bosom of our native shore.

You may find it hard to believe this miracle which the wavering tradition of our forefathers has handed down to us, yet you are compelled to suspect it by no necessity so long as you are at all events convinced of the undoubted fact that the remains of St. Felix were, on King Canute's yielding to the prayers of Bishop Etheric transferred from the aforesaid town of Soham to the church at Ramsey and re-buried with great reverence; and there, even to this day does that holy man bestow on his worshippers many benefits. If you desire further to learn anything of his origin, his life or his good deeds, you must consult Bede who has composed a history of the English in admirable style, and among other men of the highest sanctity whom he there commends, has deemed the praise of our saint worthy of a place."