Justice Done to Wilfrid at Rome: In England He Is Deposed, Imprisoned, Exiled, and Restored — 678–686 (part 2 of 2)
power of St. Peter to bind and to loose. My son, listen
to the words of her who speaks to you as a mother. Break the bishop's chains; restore to him the relics which the queen has taken from his neck, and which she carries about with her to her own injury, as the Philistines did the ark of God; and if (as would be best) you will not restore him to his bishopric, at least let him be free to leave your kingdom and go where he will. Then, upon my faith, the queen will recover; if not, I take God to witness, that He will punish you both." 200
Egfrid understood and obeyed: he sent the reliquary to Dunbar, with orders to set the bishop at liberty immediately. Ermenburga recovered, and Wilfrid, having speedily collected some of his numerous friends and disciples, took refuge in Mercia, the king of which country he supposed would be friendly towards him, in consequence of his having brought him from Rome the deed of privilege for Peterborough. But here also his expectations were vain. He had just founded a small monastery for the use of his troop of exiles, when the hatred of his enemies discovered and pursued him. Ethelred, King of Mercia, had married a sister of Egfrid and the queens, as we see in Saxon history, were often more powerful than the kings, for evil as well as for good. Ethelred, moved by the instigation of his wife, or by fear of displeasing his powerful brother-in-law, signified to his nei^hew, who had given one of his estates to the persecuted bishop, that he would endanger his head if he kept the enemy of King Egfrid another day in his territory. Wilfrid, He is how- therefore, was obliged to leave Mercia, and went into the neighboring kingdom of Wessex. But here the hatred of another queen assailed him. The wife of Centwin, King of the Western Saxons, was the sister of that Ermenburga who had been the first cause of the poor exile's troubles; she had espoused her sister's AndWes- quarrel j and again he was obliged to fly from a country in which there was no hospitality for him.
200 (( Sapiontissiraa materfamilias veniens ad reginam contractis membris stricte alligatam et sine dubio niorientem videns.... Ego scio et vere scio.... Et nunc, fill mi, secundum consilium matris tua3 fac, disrumpe vincula ejus et sanctas reliquias quas regina de collo sjjoliati abstraxit, et ia peroiciem sui (sicut arcam Dei... ), dimitte." — Eddius, c. 37.
AND THE BENEDICTINE ORDER. 395
These three brothers-in-law, kept by a common animosity in unwonted union, reigned over the three kingdoms which together occupied three-quarters at least of Saxon England.201
Wherever the influence of the Northumbrian king could extend, there was no longer for Wilfrid either security or peace.
Thus pursued by the influence of Ermenburga, He takes ' her husband, and brothers-in-law, from almost the [^Ifiaxons whole territory of the Saxon Confederation;
pelled from Canterbury and its environs by the convert^ hostility or indifi'erence of Archbishop Theodore, ^q^^J^ he took refuge in the smallest and most obscure the seven kingdoms, and the only one which had not yet been christianized, the kingdom of the Southern Saxons. The asylum which Christian kings refused him he hoped to find among his pagan countrymen. It may perhaps be recollected that he had been in great danger fifteen years before, at the commencement of his episcopate, on his return from his consecration at Compiegne, when wrecked on this inhospitable coast.^*^- The King of Sussex himself, who was still a pagan like his subjects, had been then the leader of the wreckers. Now the king was a Christian, thanks to his wife, a Mercian princess; but the country continued almost completely inaccessible to Catholic missionaries. This kingdom had furnished to the Heptarchy its first known Bretwalda, ^Ella, but since that time had fallen into obscurity, being defended at once against the invasions of its powerful neighbors, and against the eflbrts of the Canterbury monks, by its rocks and forests, which rendered it difficult of approach,2'^"^ a circumstance which is hardly comprehensible now in sight of that soft and fertile country. The inhabitants held sternly to their ancient faith; they reproached the other Saxons, who were already Christians, with their apostasy. At the same time, they had among them the begin-
^*" " In CO territorio pro Deo donato monasterioluni fundavit, quod adhuc usque hodie monaclii ejus possident.... Audiontes hominem Dei... illic manentein et modicum quiescentera, Beorthvaldo in sua salute interdicunt, ut sib! eo minus diei spatium esset pro adulatione Egfridi regis.... Nam illic regina... odio odebat eum, uti propter amicitiam regum trium dehinc fugatus abscessit.... Ita ut de propria provincia expulsus, nee in aliena regione, ultra vcl citra mare, ubi potestas Egfridi pra3valuit, requiem haberet." — Eddius, c. 38, 39.
^- See above, p. 33G.
203 a pj.gg rupium multitudine et silvarum densitate... incxpugnabilis." — Eddius, c. 39. nings from which, in ordinary cases, the conversion even of the most obstinate was produced — namely, a Christian princess and a monastery. This monastery, however, was occupied only by a small community of Celtic monks, of whom mention has already been made,^^^ and the people of Sussex gave no heed to their teaching. It Avas to this new soil that Wilfrid came: he might be driven from his country and from his diocese, but nothing could prevent his being, wherever he was, the minister of the living God, and the preacher of the truth. His first exile had made him the Apostle of the Frisians; his second gave him occasion to open the doors of the Church to the last pagans who remained to be converted in the British Isles. Like -^neas at Carthage, he touched and gained the heart of the king and queen by his story of the cruel trials of his exile. He enlightened and roused their minds; he preached to them with infinite sweetness the greatness and goodness of God; and he obtained permission to address the mass of their people to whom no one had yet dared to carry the word of life.
Thus daily, for many successive months, the prescribed and fugitive bishop stood forth among those unconquered Saxons, and told them all the series of miracles worked by the Divine Power since the creation of the world; he taught them to condemn idols, to believe in a future judgment, to fear eternal punishment, and to desire eternal happiness. His persuasive eloquence triumphed over all obstacles. The chiefs of the nation, the earls and thanes, demanded baptism at his hands; four priests of his followers baptized the rest of the nation; a few, however, resisted; and the king thought himself authorized to compel them to follow the example of their countrymen.^o^ This melancholy fact must be confessed with regret, and forgiven, in consideration of the age and race, to which violence was so natural and so contagious; but it must be added that this is the sole instance in which force was employed in the whole history of the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons, a work which Wilfrid ''°* Page SOL *°* " Et si propter inimicitias regis in patria sive parochia sua recipi non potuit; non tanien ab evangelizandi potuit ministerio cohiberi... concedendo, imo multuin gaudente rege primos provincije duces ac milites saerosancto fonte abluebat." — Bede, iv. 13. " Totius exsilii sui austeritatem per ordinem narravit... leniter suadens..., Stans episcopus noster in medio gentilium,.. per plures menses longo anibitu verborum... suaviloqua eloquentia omnia mirabiliter per ordinem prasdicavit... paganorum utriusque sexus, quidam voluntarie, allii vero coacti regis imperio... in. una die multa millia baptizata sunt." — Eddius, c. 39. had the glory of completing by the noble labors of his exile.-o^
The God whom he preached to these last pagans permitted his mission to be the channel of other blessings besides the gift of salvation. Before Wilfrid's arrival, a drought of three years' duration had desolated the country, and famine decimated the population. The poor famished creatures might be seen dragging themselves, by forty or fifty at a time, to the edge of the precipitous cliffs on the shore, and thence, holding each other by their emaciated hands, they would plunge together into the sea.^O" But on the very day when Wilfrid administered baptism to the chiefs, a soft and abundant rain watered the desolate fields, and restored to all the hope of a plentiful harvest.^o^ While the cruel famine lasted the bishop had tauerht his future
,. r. .-, -^ 1 • - converts a new means oi gaining their subsistence by fishing with nets. Until his arrival, although the waters of the sea and of their rivers abounded with fish, they had been able to catch nothing but eels.^o^ Wilfrid did not disdain to teach them how to join all their little nets into one large enough to catch the biggest fish. By such services he gradually gained the hearts of those whose souls he wished to save. The King of Sussex was as grateful as his people. He proved it by giving to the apostle of his country, for a residence during his exile, the domain on poundntioa which he himself lived, and which supported eightyseven families — that is to say, was, according to Saxon calculations, capable of feeding that number of mouths, and consequently quite sufficient for the train of monks and other Northumbrians who followed the exile in his wanderings. This estate formed a peninsula, which was called Seal's Island. Here Wilfrid founded a monastery, which afterwards became the seat of the most southern diocese of
^"^ Bede says nothing of this use of force which contrasted too strongly with the conduct he had so much praised in the first Christian King of Kent (i. 26); but, unhappily, we must believe the testimony of Eddi, who, if not actually with Wilfrid on his mission to Sussex, as at other places, must yet have known better than any one else exactly what passed there.
"°^ " SiEpe quadraginta simul aut quinquaginta... proccderent ad pra;- cipitium... et junctis misere manibus, pariter omiies aut ruina perituri aut fluctibus absorbendi deciderent."
*°** " Ipso die... pluvia serena sed copiosa descendit, refloruit terra, rediitque viridantibus arvis annus lajtus et frugifer." — Bp;de, iv. 13.
'*"" "Docuit eos piscando victum quajrere. Piscandi pcritia genti nulla nisi ad anguillas tantum inerat.... CoUectis undecumque retibus anguillaribus." — Bede, iv. 13.
England,2io and which he filled, half with monks who had come with him from the north, and half with novices taken from the converts of the south. These monks soon united in celebrating, among the other festivals of the Catholic liturgy, the feast of St. Oswald, the king who died fighting for the Christian faith and the independence of Northumbria, some years after the birth of Wilfrid; and this particular shows us how the unity of faith and associations consecrated by the new religion prepared the way for the social and political union of the different races of Great Britain.^i^
Wilfrid found on his new possessions two hundred and fifty slaves of both sexes, whom he not only delivered from the yoke of Satan by baptizing them, but also from that of men by setting them free.-^- It was thus that the monastic apostles sowed from a full hand, in England as elsewhere, bread for the soul and for the body, salvation and freedom.
Five years thus passed over Wilfrid, in his laborious but fruitful exile, of which the conversion of the Southern Saxons was not the only consolation. While the proscribed bishop reconstituted a centre of monastic life and Christian evangelism in his peninsula of Selsey, the forests of Sussex gave asylum to a whole band of other exiles, of whom the chief was a young prince of the Western Saxons named Cead walla, who had been banished from Wessex by the same king who, acting on the suggestion of his wife, expelled Wilfrid. The similarity of their fortunes united the two fugitives, though the western prince was still a with Cead- pagan. Wilfrid, who seems never to have feared a ^^ie\ke danger, or refused to do a service, procured horses and money for Ceadwalla. The exiled prince, \Whose impetuosity and boldness were only surpassed by And who ^^^ cruelty, seized, one after the other, the two kingdoms of Wessex and Sussex, laid waste the kingdom of Kent, and ended by conquering the Isle of Wight. This picturesque island, so much admired by modern travellers, and which lies between the two districts
*i° "Donavit terrani octoginta septera familiarum ubi suos homines qui exules vagabantur.... Vocabulo Selc-seu" afterwards called Selsey, created a bishopric in 711, and transferred to Chichester in 1070.
^'' "Ex hoc tempore non solum in codem monasterio, sed in plerisque locis aliis, coepit annuatim ejusdem regis ac militis Christi natalitias dies missarum celebratione venerari." — Bede, iv. 14.
^'* " Servos et ancillas... quos omnes, non solum baptizando a servitute daeraoniaca salvavit, sed etiam libertatem donando humanas jugo servitutis absolvit." — Bede, 1. c. occupied by the Saxons of the West and South, was inhabited by twelve hundred pagan families of the tribe of the Jutes, a race which first of all the German invaders had landed upon the coast of Kent. The ferocious Ceadwalla slaughtered them all, to avenge the wounds he had received in attacking them. But his mind was pervaded by instinct of religion such as he had seen in Wilfrid, although he had not been moved to adopt it. Before he in- Hc^jves vaded the island he made a vow that, if victorious, JJ^^^j^^p^^t he would give a quarter of his booty to the God of Wilfrid, and he kept his word by granting to the bishop a quarter of the conquered and depopulated island. He even carried his cruel condescension so far as to permit the monks to instruct and baptize two young brothers of the chief of the island before cutting them down in the general massacre. And the two young victims marched to death with so joyous a confidence, that the popular veneration long counted them among the martyrs of the new faith, This savage, as soon as he returned to Wesses, summoned Wilfrid thither, treated him as his father and friend, and put himself definitely under instruction. But as soon as he understood, thanks to the teaching of Wilfrid, what religion and the Church meant, he found baptism by Bishop Wilfrid insufficient, and it will be hereafter seen that he went to Rome, as much to expiate his crimes by a laborious pilgrimage, as to receive baptism at the hands of the Pope.
Although the report of Wilfrid's fresh apostolic conquests, and of his relations with the kings of the provinces nearest the metropolis of Canterbury, must certainly have reached the ears of Archbishop Theodore, the conduct of that prelate towards him continued inexplicable. In spite of the decrees of the Holy See, he held at Twyford, in Northumbria, a council, where, with the consent of (""oc^sfoV'® King Egfrid, he disposed of the episcopal sees of Hexham and Lindisfarne, exactly as if these dioceses had not been parts of that of York, or as if Wilfrid had been dead or canonically deposed.^^"^ The first bishop thus placed by Theodore at Hexham, a see created in the very monastery built and endowed by Wilfrid, was an admirable monk, named Cuthbert, whose virtues and sanctity had long been celebrated in Northumbria; and, what is stranger still, nothing
2'' Bede, iv. 28; Bolland, t. vi. Sept., p. 64.
in the fully detailed life of this saint which has been preserved to us, shows that his repugnance to be made bishop had any connection with the manifest violation of the rights of him whose place he was called upon to usurp. All that he desired was to be transferred from Hexham to Lindisfarne — that is to say, to the episcopal monastery where he had been educated, and in which, or in one of its dependencies, he had always lived. He evidently believed that the metropolitan supremacy of Theodore was without limit, and dispensed him from following the canons of the Church. King King Egfrid professed the most affectionate devo- Egfrid ^Iqj^ ^q Cuthb^rt; but this need not astonish us. The persecutor of Wilfrid was far from being the enemy of the Church or of the monastic order. He Avas, on the contrary, the founder and benefactor of many of the great monasteries of the north of England, and the friend of all the saints of his time, except Wilfrid alone; and it seems to have been his wish to transfer to Cuthbert the confiding affection and respectful deference with which he had treated Wilfrid in the early part of his reign. Ermenburga, the cruel enemy of Wilfrid, was, like her husband, filled with the most ardent veneration for the holy monk, who had become one of the successors of her victim. But this devotion did not prevent Egfrid from giving himself up to ambition, and indulging in a thirst for war and conquest too much conformed to the traditions of his ancestors and pagan predecessors, "' the Cruelly Ravager," and " the Man of Fire."2i4 In 684, with- I'Jefand, ^^^ ^^7 ^nowu motive, he sent an army against Ire- 6S4, ' land, which devasted that island with pitiless cruelty. This invasion is the first of the unexpiated national crimes of the Anglo-Saxons against Ireland. It excited the indignation, not only of the victims, but also of the witnesses of its barbarity. The venerable Bede himself, though little to be suspected of partiality, or even of justice, as regards the Celts, points out the crime committed by the king of his nation against an innocent people, who, far from espousing the cause of the British Celts, had always been the friends and allies of the Anglo-Saxons. The soldiers of Egfrid did not even spare those great and holy monasteries where the Anglo-Saxon youth were in the habit of going to learn evangelical piety and knowledge, or where, as at Mayo, there lived a numerous community of Northumbrian monks who
2'^ See p. 203. had preferred to forsake their country, and remain faithful to the teachings of their first apostles, rather than to submit to the triumph of Wilfrid and the Roman rule. The poor Irish, after defending themselves to the utmost, were everywhere vanquished, and liad no other resource left but that of seeking by constant and solemn imprecations to call down the vengeance of heaven upon their unworthy assailants.^i^ This time at least their too legitimate curses were realized.
In vain the Northumbrian Egbert, an illustrious and most learned monk of Lindisfarne, who bad entreaties" voluntarily banished himself to Ireland for the love NortUumof Christ and the benefit of his soul,^!^ and who had ^""Jl^g ™*"^'^ great authoritj^ in both islands, supplicated the king of his native country to spare a people who had in no way provoked his anger. In vain the holy bishop Cuthbert, together with the best friends of the king, endeavored in flie following year to dissuade him from commencing a war, not less cruel, and perhaps not less unjust, against the Picts. Egfrid would listen neither to one nor the other, but hurried to his ruin, He himself led his troops, and permitted them under his very eyes to devastate the invaded country with atrocious cruelty .^^^ The Northern Celts retired before him, and thus succeeded indrawing him intoaHighland pass, where he perished with his whole army, while still scarcely forty years of age, and after a reign of fifteen years. It was the counterpoise and return for the victory he had gained at the beginning of his reign in the days of his happy union with Wilfrid. This disaster was the signal for the liberation of the Celtic races whom Oswald, Oswy, and Egfrid had brought under the yoke of Northumbria, a yoke now broken forever. The Picts, the Scots, and the Britons of Strathclyde, together rushed upon the Angles, and drove them from the whole conquered territory between the Firth of Forth and the Tweed. Since then the northern frontier of Northumbria and of all England lias remained fixed at the line which runs from the mouth of the Tweed to the Solway Firth. And since then^, ^'^ " Gentem innoxiam et nationi Anglorum semper amicissimam.... At insulani... cajlitus vindicari continuis diu imprecationibus postula.- bant." — Bede, iv. 2G.
216 a Venerabilis et cum omni honorificentia honorandus famulus Chnsti et sacerdos Egbert quom in Ilibernia insula pcregrinans ducere vitampro adlpiscenda in coclo patria retulimus." — Bede, v. 9.
^'^ " Dum Egfridus... eorum regna atroci sajvitiadcvastabat." — Bede, Vita S. Cuthberti, c. 27. also, the Angles who remained north of the Tweed have been subject to the Scots and Picts, forming with them the kingdom henceforward called Scotland. From that day the splendor of Northumbria was eclipsed.^is Queen Er- Queen Ermenburga awaited the result of her husiSfonned'^ baud's expedition in a monastery governed by one ^^ ^^^ sisters at Carlisle, in the centre of the British population of Cumberland; ^19 and the holy bishop husband. Cuthbert, to whom King Egbert had given this town with its environs, came to the same place to console her in case of a misfortune which he but too clearly foresaw. On the day after his arrival, as the governor of the town accompanied him towards the ancient ramparts of the Roman city, he made a sudden pause, and, leaning on his staff, said with a sigh, "Alas! I fear that all is over, and that the judgment of God has come upon our army." When he was urged to explain what he meant, he merely replied, " See how clear the sky is, and remember that the judgments of God are inscrutable." -^^ Upon this he immediately returned to the queen, and told her that he feared the king had perished, and that she ought to start not the next day, which was Sunday, a day on which it was unlawful to travel in a carriage,^^! b^t on the Monday, to seek refuge in the royal fortress of Bamborough, where he promised to join her.
Two days afterwards a fugitive from the battle came to tell that at the very hour indicated by the saint, King Egfrid, whose guards had all perished in his defence, had been Idlled by the avenging sword of a Pict.
Ermenburga bowed to the Divine hand which struck her. She took the veil from the hands of
^^^ "Ex quo tempore spes cospit et virtus regni Anglorura fluere ac retro sublapsa referri." Bede, Hist. Eccles.,\v. 26.
^'' Carlisle was, as we haye said, emphatically British. Even to the present day Cumberland has retained its British population. It bore the title of Kingdom in the middle ages, after it had escaped from the Northumbrian yoke. — Varin, memoir already quoted, p. 368; see also Spruner's Historic Atlas.
^-" " Stans juxta baculum sustentationis... suspirans, ait: O, 6, 6! existimo enim perpetratum esse helium, judicatunique est judicium de populis nostris bellantibus adversum.... O filioli mei, considerate quam admirabilis sit aer, et recogitate quam inscrutabilia sint judicia Dei." — Tertia Vita audore Monacho coavo, ap. Bolland., t. iii. Martii, p. 123. The version of Bede, in the Life of S. Cuthbert, ch. 27, says, on the contrary, " Nonne videtis quam mire mutatus et turbatus sit aer!"
221 " Quia die dominico curru ire non licet." Even now, among the descendants of the Anglo-Saxons inhabiting Scotland, popular piety renders it difficult to travel on Sunday.
Cuthbert in her sister's monastery at Carlisle. This Jezebel, as she is called by the friend of Wilfrid, changed suddenly from a wolf into a lamb,222 and became the model of abbesses. The body of her husband was not buried at Whitby, as those of his father and grandfather had been,223 but carried, perhaps as a trophy of the victor}', to the monastic island of lona, which had been the asylum of his race in their exile, and which was still the national sanctuary of the victors.
Wilfrid, banished and deprived of his diocese, was thus but too well avenged. The Northumbrian kingdom, which had struck in his person at the independence and growing authority of the Church, paid the price of its fiult by losing half its dominions, and by witnessing the downfall of that political and religious edifice which had been built upon the ruin of the Bishop of York.
One of the new bishops substituted for Wilfrid, a Saxon monk, named Trumwine, whose see had been placed at Abercorn, on the banks of the Forth, at the extreme limit of the Northumbrian territory, escaped with difficulty from death or slavery, the only alternative which the Celtic conquerors left to their defeated enemies. With him came all his monks, whom he dispersed, as he best could, among the Northumbrian communities, as it was necessary to do afterwards with the Saxon nuns of his diocese, who fled before the irritated Celts, whom they regarded as savages. He himself sought a refuge at Whitby, where he passed the rest of his days, rendering such services as were compatible with his episcopal character to the abbess, who was invested with the difficult mission of ruling a
double community of monks and nuns.224 n ^yj^g j^q longer
Hilda the holy foundress who governed this great establishment; it was a daughter of Oswy, a sister of the three last -" "Do lupa, post occisioneni regis, agna Domini et perfecta abbatissa materque familias optima commutata est." — Eddius, c. 2.?. Cf. Bede, Vita S. Cuthberti, c. 27, 23.
'" See above, page 357.
^^* " Inter plurimos gentis Anglorum vel interemptos gladio, vel servitio addictos, vel de terra Pietorum fuga lapsos... recessit cum suis, eosque ubicumque poterat amieis per monasteria commendans ... in monastica districtione non sibi soluminodo, sed et nmltis utilcm ducit... ipse in supradicto famulorum faniularumque Dei monasterio. Adveniente illuc cpiscopo, maximum rcgcndi auxilium simul et suae vitaj solatium devota Deo doctrix invenit." — Bede, iv. 2(J. lie died there in 700. We find that St. Cuthbert assigned a residence in a town of his diocese to the Northern nuns, " timore barbarici exercitus a monasterio suo profugis." — Vita S. Cuthberti, c. 30.
404 ST. WILFRID ESTABLISHES ROMAN UNITY
Northumbrian kings, that Elfleda, whom her father had devoted to God as the price of his victory over the Mercians, and who, intrusted from infancy to Hilda, had grown up in the shadow of the great sea-side monastery. Her mother, Queen Eanfleda, the widow of Oswy, and first protectress of Wilfrid, had joined her there, to end her days in peace beside the tomb of her husband, and under the crosier of her daughter.
Archbishop "^^^^ adversaries of Wilfrid thus vanished one by one. Of the three principal authors of his ruin, Egfrid was now dead, and Ermenburga a veiled ii^in. There still remained Archbishop Theodore. Whether the death of Egfrid had acted as a warning to him, or whether the recollection of his apostolic mission, which, in respect to Wilfrid, he had so ill fulfilled, came back to his mind, with a remorse made keener by age and illness, at least it became apparent to him that the moment for confessing and expiating his fault had come, and he did so with the complete and generous frankness which belongs to great minds.225 He was an old man even at the moment when he was taken from his Eastern monastery to be placed at the head of the English Church, and he had now labored nearly twenty years in that fruitful but rude and thorny field. He was thus more than eighty, and the day of his death could not be far distant. The archbishop perceived that if death overt6ok him before he was reconciled to Wilfrid, the great works he had accomplished in regulating, purifying, and consolidating the morals and Christian institutions of England would be in some degree contradicted before God and men, by the sight of the great bishop, who had been robbed and. exiled solely for having defended his rights and obeyed the Holy See. Accordingly, he summoned Wilfrid to him. Sussex, the residence of the exile, was near to Canterbury, or rather to London, where the interview took place, in presence of a holy monk, who was Bishop of London and of the East Saxons.-'^'^ In presence of these two bishops, the countryman and successor of St. PauP^i made his general confession. When he had ended, he said to Wilfrid, " My greatest remorse 225 <' Auctoritatem apostolicae sedis, a qua missus fuerat, metu agitante, honorificaiis." — Eddius, c. 41. " De peccato in Wilfridum commisso sauciatus conscientiam." — Guill. Malmesb., f. 151.
^^^ Earconwald, of whom more will be said later. — Bede, iv. 6, 11. ^^^ The EngUsh have an old tradition, according to which St. Paul, born, like Theodore, at Tarsus in Cilicia, was the fl^st to preach the Christian faith in Britain. is for the crime I have committed against yon, most holy bishop, in consenting to the will of the kings when they robbed you of your possessions and sent you into exile without any fiult of yours. I confess it to God and St. Peter, and I take you both to witness that I will do what I can to make up for this sin, and to reconcile you with all the kings and nobles, among my friends, whether they wish it or not. God has revealed to me that I shall die within a ^j^^^j^gj^g year; therefore I conjure you, by the love of God to^cu?'/and St. Peter, to consent that I establish you during suc'J,™*on my life as heir to my archiepiscopal see, for I ac- {,°g^'Jfp'J[e^' knowledge that of all your nation you are the best instructed in all knowledge and in the discipline of Rome."^-'' Wilfrid answered, " May God and St. Peter pardon you all our controversy. I shall always pray for 3'ou as your friend. Send letters now to your friends that they may be made aware of our reconciliation, and the injustice of that robbery of which 1 have been the victim, and that they may restore to me at least a part of my goods, according to the command of the Holy See. After which we will examine with you in the great council of the country who is the most worthy to become your successor." 229
The old archbishop immediately set to work to ho writes repair as far as possible the injury he had done to 'iyn'fruJ'to^ • Wilfrid. He wrote letters to all quarters, to plead \'J[;/V^"= '^^ his cause and to secure for him as many friends as he had once sought to make him enemies.^so Unfortunately only one of these letters had been preserved, but it is suflScient to do honor to his goodness of heart, and to show how the old Greek monk, transplanted into the midst of a Germanic population, could rule and train the souls under his authority, like a worthy successor and countryman of him who acknowledged himself, according to Scripture, '^ debtor both to the Greeks and Barbarians." It is addressed to Ethelred, King of Mercia, who by his means had become the '2' " Sapienter totius vitee susb cursum cum confessione coram Domino pure revelavit.... Cunctos amicos meos regales et principos eorum ad amicitiam tuam... volentes nolontesque constringens adtraho... quia veraeiter in omni sapientia ct in judiciis Romanorum eruditissimum to vestraj gentis agnovi." — Eddius, c. 41.
239 " Ero pro tua confessione orans pro te amicus in perpetuum.... Modo prinmm mitte nuntios cum litteris,.. ut me olim innoxium exspoliatum agnoscant... et postea... quls dignus sit... cum consensu tuo in inajori consilio consulemus." — Eddius, c. 41.
"^^ " Sibi ubique amicos, quasi prius inimicos, facere diligenter cxcogltavit." — Ibid. friend and brother-in-law of Wilfrid's chief persecutor.^^i " My very dear son, — Let your holiness know that I am at peace with the venerable Bishop Wilfrid; therefore I beseech and enjoin you, by the love of Christ, to give him your protection as you formerly did, to the utmost of your power, and as long as you live; for all this time while robbed of his possessions, he has labored for God among the heathen. It is I, Theodore, the humble and infirm bishop, who in my old age address to you this exhortation, according to the apostolic will, so that this holy man may forget the injuries of which he has been so unjustly the victim, and that amends may be made to him. I would ask you besides, if you still love me, although the length of the journey may make my request importunate, let me see once more your dear countenance, that I may bless you before I die. But above all, my son, my dear son, do what I conjure you to do for the holy Wilfrid. If you obey your father who will not be much longer in thiaworld, obedience will bring you happiness. Adieu, peace be with you, live in Christ, abide in the Lord, and may the Lord abide in you."^'''^ This letter had its due effect. Ethelred received Wilfrid with great honor, although six years before he would not suffer him to spend a single night in his kingdom; he restored all the monasteries and domains which had formerly been his in Mercia, and to the end of his life remained faithfully attached to him.
a. *,, AK I^ut it was in Northumbria above all that it was
To the Ab-. ,, ,. ..„, i,TT
bess El- important to obtain restitution for the robbed and ^^'^^' humiliated bishop. For this purpose Theodore addressed himself to the new king Aldfrid and to the princess Elfleda, sister of the king, and Abbess of Whitby, who had naturally inherited a dislike for Wilfrid from St. Hilda, from whom she had received her education, before becoming her successor, and whose vast building she was about to complete.^^
2=^> See Bede, iv. 21.
232 a Cognoscat tua miranda sanctitas, pacem me in Christo habere cum venerando episcopo Wilfrido.... Ego Theodorus, humilis episcopus, decrepita jetate, hoc tuje beatitudini suggero... et licet tibi pro longinquitate itineris durum esse videatur, oculi niei faciem tuam jucundam videant.... Age ergo, fili mi, fill mi, taliter de illo supra fato viro sanctissimo, sicut te deprecatus sum.... Vale in pace, vive in Christo, dege in Domino, Dominus sit tecum."
233 li PraecJpuura monasterium... quod ab insignis religionis femina Hilda coeptum, Edelfleda ejusdeni regis filia in regimine succedens, magnis fiscalium opum molibus auxit." — Guill. Malmesb., De Gest. Eeg.,m.
Hilda had been quickly followed to the grave by her illustrious rival Ebba, who was, like herself, a princess of the Northumbrian royal djniasty, and abbess of a double monastery at Coldingham. The f^^ young Elfleda, niece of Ebba and heiress of Hilda, was therefore the sole representative in Northumbria of that great and salutary authority which was so willingly yielded by the Anglo-Saxon kings and people to those princesses of their sovereign races who became the brides of Christ. The noble Elfleda, who was scarcely twenty-five years of age when she was called to succeed Hilda onhe Ab-" as Abbess of Whitby, is described by Bede as a ^vTiuBi'S most pious mistress of spiritual life. But like all the Anglo-Saxon princesses whom we meet with in the cloister at this epoch, she did not cease to take a passionate interest in the affairs of her race and country. All the more strongly, in consequence, she felt the need of spiritual help to aid her virgin motherhood in ruling the many souls gathered together under her crosier.-'^* It was chiefly to Cuthbert that she had recourse. Before he had become bishop, while he lived on a desert rock near Lindisfarno, she had prevailed on him to grant her an interview in an island on the Northumbrian coast, called then, as now. Coquet Island, and which lies nearer Lindisfarne than Whitby. This was while her brother Egfrid still reigned. The hermit and the abbess went each to their meeting by sea; and when he had answered ah her questions, she threw herself at his feet, and entreated him to tell her, by virtue of those prophetic powers with which he was known to be gifted, whether her brother Egfrid should have a long life and reign. " I am surprised," he answered, '' that a woman weU taught and versed as you are in the knowledge of Holy Scripture should speak to me of length with regard to human life, which lasts no longer than a spider's web, as the Psalmist has said, ' Quia anni nostri sicut aranea meditahuntur' How short then must life be for a man who nas but a year to live, and who has death at his door! " At these words, she wept long; then, drying her tears, she continued, with feminine boldness, and inquired who should be the king's successor, since he had neither sons nor brothers. " Do not say," he replied,
^^* " Devota Deo doctrix... quaj inter gaudia virginitatis non paucis famularuiu Cl)risti agminibus matornae pietatis curam adhibebat... vlmicrandissima virgo et mater virginum... multo virum Dei semper cxcolebat amore." — Bede, iv. 26, in VUa S. Cutkberti, c. 24. Cf. 34.
408 ST. WILFRID ESTABLISHES ROMAN UNITY
" that he is without heirs; he shall have a successor whom you will love, as you love Egfrid, as a sister." " Then tell me, I entreat you, where this successor is." " You see," returned Cuthbert, directing the eyes of his companion towards the archipelago of islets which dots the Northumbrian coast around Lindisfarne, " how many isles are in the vast ocean; it is easy for God to bring from them some one to reign over the English." Elfleda then perceived that he spoke of a young man supposed to be the son of her father Oswy, by an Irish mother, and who, since his infancy, had lived as an exile at lona, where he gave himself up to study .235
And it thus happened in reality that the cruel of^King"" and warlike Egfrid was succeeded on the most im- Nwthum^ portant throne of the Anglo-Saxon confederation ^oi'';.^- hy a learned prince who, during twenty years of a 685-/0O. ,•' - A .'
i.
• J 1 J. J long and prosperous reign, sustained and restored to the utmost extent of his powers the ancient glory of the Northumbrian kingdom, within the new limits to which the victorious insurrection of the Picts had restricted it, but who specially distinguished himself by his love of letters and knowledge. Aldfrid^^o [^^d passed his early days at lona, in that island retreat where his father Oswy and his uncle Oswald had both found refuge in their youth, and whither the bleeding body of the brother whose crown descended to him had just been carried. During his long, and perhaps voluntary, exile in the Scottish monasteries and schools, he had been trained in theology and dialectics, cosmography, and all the studies then cultivated by the Celtic monks. He brought back from his residence at lona, and his visits to Melrose and other places, that passionate curiosity and lavish liberality which may be traced among the Irish of the seventh century, and which seems a kind of prelude to the revival of learning in the fifteenth century .^37
233 ««Repente in medio sermone advoluta pedibus ejus, adjuravit eum. Haec audiens fusis lacrymis prajsagia dira deflebat: extersaque facie, rursus audacia feminea adjuravit per raajestatem summai divinitatis.... Cernis hoc mare magnum et spatiosum, quot abundat insulis! Facile est Deo de aliqua harum sibi provideri, quern regno prajficiat Anglorum. Intellexit ergo quia de Aldfrido diceret, qui tunc in insulis Scotorum ob studium litterarum exsulebat." — Bede, Vita S. Cuihberti, c. 2i.
^*® It has already been said that he must not be confounded with Alchfrid, the eldest legitimate son of Oswy, and Wilfrid's first friend. Aldfrid was a natural son, and probably the eldest of Oswy's children.
"7 " Qui nunc regnat pacifice, qui tunc erat in insula quara Hy Dominant." — Vita hrevis S, Cuthberti, ap. Bollakd., t. iii. Mart., p. 141. " Vir ia
To this new king, as well as to his sister, the Abbess Elfleda, Archbishop Theodore wrote, to exhort there both to lay aside their enmity against Wilfrid, and to receive him with unreserved kindness.^ss A prince so much given to letters could not remain deaf to the prayers of an archbishop who added to his authority as legate of the Holy See and primate of the Anglo-Saxon Church the fame of greater learning and zeal for intellectual culture than had ever before been seen in Britain. Accordingly, in the second year of his reign, Aldfrid recalled Wilfrid to Northumbria, and restored to him, first, the Monastery of Hexham, with all the surrounding parishes, then the bishopric of York, and finally Ripon, which had been his chosen home, and the centre of his reforms. It is easy to understand the joy of the monks of those great communities, formed by Wilfrid, who had, no doubt, daily prayed for the restoration of their father. They went out to meet him in crowds, and led him back in triumph to the churches he had built for them.-'^^ The bishops formerly placed by Theodore at Hexham, Ripon, and York,-^*^ were dismissed; and the holy Bishop of Lindisfarne having voluntarily abdicated to return to his solitary rock of Fern, and there prepare for his approaching death, Wilfrid was charged to appoint his successor.
The four dioceses formed by the division of the great diocese of York, which comprehended all the country north of the Humber, were thus once more united under the crosier of Wilfrid. But a restoration so complete lasted only a year: the administration of Wilfrid met great opposition at Lindisfarne. On this
Scripturis doctissimus.... Destructum regni statum quamvis intra fines angustiores nobiliter recuperavit." — Bede, Hist., iv. 2G. "Qui regionibus Scotorum lectioni operam dabat, ibi ob aiuorem sapientiae spontaneum passus exilium." — Bede, Vita Cuthherti, c. 14. " Ab odio germani tutus, et magno otio litteris inibutus, onini pliilosophia couiposuerat animum." —WiLLELM. Maemesb., De Gest. Reg., c. 52.
"'^ " Ut simultatibus retropositis incunctanter caritatem ejus complecterentur." — Boleand., t. ii. Febr., p. 184.
-'* " In gaudio subjcctorum suorum de exsilio... rediens." — Eddics, c 43. " Crebra inonachorum examina patri obviam procedunt." — Eadmer, VitaS. Wilfridi, C.21.
'^"' This is affirmed by Eddi, a contemporary and witness of most of the facts lie relates, while Bede and other authors suppose that St. John, called of Beverley, a monk of Whitby, who had been placed at Hexham in 685 by the Archbishop Theodore, was transferred to York when Wilfrid returned, rrobably Bede anticipated by some years the nomination of John, who was certainly the successor of Wilfrid at York, after his second exile. subject the venerable Bade, who was as prudent as sincere, speaks only by hints.^^^ It may be divined that Wilfrid took advantage of his re-establishment in his diocese to strike a last blow at Celtic traditions, and that spirit of independence which the first Scottish apostles of Northumbria had introduced into the holy island. The changes he attempted to introduce were so unbearable to the Anglo-Saxon monks of the school of Cuthbert and his masters, that they declared themselves ready to imitate their brethren who had left Ripon at the arrival of Wilfrid. They preferred to leave the first sanctuary of Christianity, and the cradle of their order in Northumbria, rather than to yield to the tyranny of their new superior. He himself became aware that their resistance was insurmountable, and at the end of a year he gave up Lindisfarne to a new bishop who, being both wise and gentle, calmed all parties.^^
About this time the prediction of Archbishop Theodore was verified; he died at the age of eighty- ^^g^t, after a pontificate of twenty-two years. His conduct towards Wilfrid is open to the widest censure, and can scarcely be explained otherwise than by the jealousy inspired in the metropolitan of England by the splendor and power of the immense bishopric of York under a ruler such as Wilfrid. But an impartial posterity owes him atleast the justice rendered him by his contemporaries, and is bound to recognize in him a man who did more than any of his six predecessors to organize and consolidate the Church of England, on the double basis of Roman supremacy and of the union of the Anglo-Saxon bishoprics among themselves by their subordination to the metropolitan see of Canterbury .2^3 ]vj-q bishop before him had labored so much for the intellectual development of the native clergy, or for the union of the different Anglo-Saxon dynasties. The Greek monk, therefore, may well be reckoned among the founders of the English Church and nationality; and when he was
^*^ " Tanta ecclosiam illam tentationis aura coneussit, ut plures e fratribus loco magis cedere, quam talibus vellent interesse periculis." Then speaking of the successor of Wilfrid: "Eugatis perturbationum procellis... sanavit contritos corde, et alligavit contritiones eorura... quia post ejus (Cuthberti) obitum repellendi ac destruendi essent cives sed post ascensionem niinantis iraj cajlestis protinus miseratione refovendi." — Vita S. Cuthberti, c. 39.
^•'^ Bede, iv. 29. His name was Eadbert.
^*^ "Tantum profectus spiritalis tempore praesulatus illius Anglorum eoclesiie, quantum nunquara antea potuere, coeperunt." — Bede, v. 8. buried, wrapped in his monastic habit in place of a shroud,^^* in the ecclesiastical burying-ground of Canterbury, it was but just that he should be laid on the right hand of St. Augustin, the Italian monk who a century earlier had cast the first seeds of faith and Christian civilization into the soul of the Anglo-Saxon race.^^^