Second Exile of Wilfrid, and Second Appeal to Rome, — 686-705

Rupture of "Wilfrid with King Aldfrid. — New accusations against "Wilfrid.

— He is exiled the second time. — He is received by the King of Mercia, who gives him the bishopric of Lichfield. — He there lives eleven years in tranquil obscurity. — Theodore's successor hostile to "Wilfrid, as also Abbot Adrian. — Assembly of Nesterfield. — Degrading proposals made to "Wilfrid; he rejects them. — His speech. — He appeals to Rome. — Precocious talent of the Anglo-Saxons in diplomacy and despotism. — King Ethelred of Mercia remains faithful to Wilfrid. — The monks of Ripon are excommunicated. — Wilfrid's third voyage to Rome. — Contrast with the first. — Pope John VI. — The trial lasts four months, and occupies seventy sittings. — Wilfrid is acquitted. — Returning to England, he falls ill at Meaux. — His friend Acca. — His life is prolonged in answer to the prayers of his monks. — He is reconciled to the archbishop. — He goes to visit his faithful friend Ethelred, now become a monk at Bardeney. —Aldfrid, King of Northumbria, refuses to recognize the sentence of the Holy See. —He dies. —His successor expels Wilfrid within six days, but is himself dethroned. — National assembly on the banks of the Nid. — The Abbess Elfleda and the Ealdorman Bertfrid interpose on behalf of Wilfrid. — General reconciliation. — The Monasteries of Ripon and Hexham given up to him. — Influence of Anglo-Saxon princesses on the destiny of Wilfrid.

"^ "Jacebatutia primordio erat depositus Integra forma metropolitani sacerdotii pallio et monachiti tantum obductus cuculla." — Gotselinus, Translatio SS. Reliq., 1. ii. c. 27.

^^* The following lines were written by a poet of the time on the seven monks who were the first seven Archbishops of Canterbury, and who wero buried side by side: —

" Septera primates sunt Anglis et proto-patrcs,
Septem rectores, septemque per a)thra triones
Septem sunt stellae, nitet his haic area ceilaj;
Septem cisternae vitae, septemque lucernae."

Wilfrid was fifty-six when his great rival, thus tardily transformed into a repentant and faithful ally, died; and for more than a quarter of a century his life had been one continued conflict. He might therefore hope for a little repose, and even perhaps believe it possible. But God still had in reserve for him long years of renewed trials. The first half of his history is repeated in the second with a wearisome monotony as to the events, but with the same constancy and courage in the hero of the endless struggle^"*^ T> ..t „ f The truce which was granted to him in the midst Kupture01. T 1 I n T

of his laborious career lasted but five years. It was more than once disturbed: calm and storm alter- 686-691. nately characterized his relations with King Aldfrid, a monarch justly dear to the Northumbrians, whom his courage and ability preserved from the disastrous consequences of Egfrid's downfall. But in 691, the king, freed from the influence which Archbishop Theodore had exercised over him, as well as over all England, cast ofi" all pretences towards the bishop, whose moral and material power was an offence to him, as it had been to bis father and brother. Predisposed, also, by his education and his long residence in Ireland to favor Celtic tendencies, it may be supposed that he easily allowed himself to be influenced by the rancor and ill-will naturally entertained towards Wilfrid by the disciples and partisans of Scotic monks and bishops. Thus war was once more declared between the court of Northumbria and that exclusively Roman and Benedictine spirit of which Wilfrid was the uncompromising champion.^^?

'^fi The following are the principal dates of the life of Wilfrid: —664. Named Bishop of York and of all Northumbria.

665. Replaced by Ceadda, during his absence in France for his consecration. He retires to Ripon.

669. Recalled to York by the intervention of Theodore.

678. Dismemberment of the diocese; he is removed from York, and

transferred to Lindisfarne; he refuses, and appeals to Rome. 679. On his return from Rome, with a judgment in his favor, he is imprisoned, and afterwards exiled.

686. After the death of Egfrid, he is a second time re-established. 69L Third expulsion by King Aldfrid, and second exile.

692. He is made Bishop of Lichfield.

703. Assembly of Nesterfield. Wilfrid refuses to sign his deposition.

Second appeal to the Holy See; third voyage to Rome.

705. He returns to England. Assembly on the banks of the Nid; his two

monasteries of Ripon and Hexham are restored to him.

709. He dies at Oundle.

^'' "Nam antiquae inimicitife suasores, quasi de sopore somni excitati •.. facem dissensionis extinctam resuscitavere, quippe inter regem sapientissi-

AND THE BENEDICTINE ORDER. 413

Three complaints in chief were brought against the great bishop, two of which dated back to the

of the struggle begun by Wilfrid between

origin the Celts and Romanists. The matter in question was the Monastery of Ripon, founded originally for a colony of Celtic novices from Melrose, but afterwards given to Wilfrid, to the injury of the first owners, and dedicated by him to St. Peter, as if with the intention of holding up the standard under which he intended to fight. His new adversaries at first propose to deprive the Church of Ripon, the true capital of Wilfrid's spiritual kingdom, of a portion of its vast possessions, and to erect this into a new bishopric, dividing a second time the diocese of York, for the extension of Celtic influence, but in contempt of the Pontifical verdict and of the royal grant which had irrevocably guaranteed to Wilfrid and his monks the existence of this community free and exempt from all other jurisdiction.^^^ Wilfrid, with his usual firmness, refused to consent to this division; upon which his adversaries changed their tactics, and reproached him for not obeying all the decrees issued by Archbishop Theodore as legate of the Holy See. This was in evident reference to the new bishoprics erected by Theodore in Wilfrid's diocese. With address worthy of a more civilized century, the theologians of the Northumbrian king thus taught him to transform the most devoted champion of Rome into an insurgent against the authority of the Holy See, and to make of the archbishop who had just died reconciled to Wilfrid, an adversary not less dangerous after his death than during his life. Wilfrid replied that he willingly recognized the statutes made by Theodore before their rupture, and after their reconciliation — that is to say, while all the churches were canonically united — but not those which dated from the interval in which division reigned. This was a sufficient pretence for his enemies to treat him as a rebel, and consign him to a new exile.

Thus Wilfrid found himself, for the third time, Heisexiied deprived of the see to which he had been canoni- fortheeeccally appointed by the father and brother of King ®"'**""^- mum et sanctum virura... iterum in Concordia, atque itcrum in discordia alternatiin per multos annos viventes... usque duni postrcnio maxima flanima ininiicitise exardeccscente... expulsus rccessit. Prima causa est dissensionis eorum de antiqua origine descendens." — Eddius, c. 43.

*^^ " Ut monasterium quod in privilegiuni nobis donabatur ... in episcopalem sedem transmutetur; et libertatem relinquere, quamsanctus Agatho ct quique rcges censuerunt fixe et firmiter possidere." — Eddius, c. 43.

Aldfrid twenty years before; and sentenced to a second exile for refusing to lend himself to the schemes of the adversaries of law and of monastic and ecclesiastical freedom. He Wilfrid re- sought refuge in Mercia, the country which he had ^° often visited in the time of his sainted friend Etheldreda, where the great Monastery of Peter's Burg, with its hitherto unquestioned independence, reminded him of ancient efforts happily accomplished, and where King Ethelred, who had been definitively won over to his side by the touching letter of the aged Archbishop Theodore, and who saw in him the representative of Roman authority, offered him effectual protection and an aJBfection which never wavered in its fidelity.-'*^ This king immediatewho makes ly Called him to the vacant see of Lichfield, which, ofLidltieiT. since the new episcopal division arranged by Theodore, no longer comprehended the whole of Mercia, but which still offered a sufficient field to the apostolic zeal of Wilfrid. It was the see which had been held by the gentle and pious Ceadda, who superseded Wilfrid at York, at the time of his first quarrel with King Oswy in 665. Wilfrid now succeeded his former supplanter, changing for the fourth time his episcopal residence.^^'' In this obscure and restricted sphere, he contented himself with fulfilling his duties as bishop, and awaiting better days with patience. Here he lived eleven years, and during that long interval one single trace of his active work is all that is visible— the consecration of a missionary bishop named Swidbert. This missionary, destined to be the apostle of Westphalia, had already visited that region of Friesland whither Wilfrid himself carried the first revelation of the Gospel, and whither his example had led several Anglo- Saxon monks, the traces of whose light-giving progress will be met with further on.

A descend- It is evident that no one thought of doing anysucceetE'^'" thing to Carry out the intention, so clearly exprosscd by Theodore, of making Wilfrid his successor. On the Contrary, after an interval of two years, a priest named Berchtwald, formerly a monk at Glastonbury, and afterwards abbot of a monastery built at Reculver, on the site of the palace to which the first Christian king had retired, after giving up his capital to ^' " Ad amicum fidelem accessit... qui eum cum magno honore propter reverentiam apostolicae sedis suscepit." — Eddius, c. 43.

^^" York, Hexham, Lindisfarne, and Lichfield.

Augustin, was elected to the vacant see. Berchtwald was descended from the dynasty which reigned in Mercia, and was the first of the race of Odin who took his place among the successors of the apostles.-°i One Anglo-Saxon had already figured among the archbishops of Canterbury; but as he had changed his name into the Roman appellation of Deusdedit, he has been reckoned among the foreign prelates, and the national historians, chronicling the promotion of Berchtwald, write proudly, " Hitherto our bishops had been Roman; from this time they were English." ~'^'^ As there was no other metropolitan in England, he had to go to Lyons to be consecrated. He presided over the English Church for nearly forty years. He was very learned, deeply imbued with the knowledge of Holy Scripture, and of monastic discipline; but the Saxon Bede acknowledges that he was far from equalling his predecessor, Theodore the Greek.253

But from whence arose the hostility of the new archbishop to Wilfrid? Perhaps the seeds of it had been sown in the Celto-British Monastery of Glastonbury. Except at the moment of the holy Archbishop Theodore's tardy confession and restitution, Wilfrid, from the beginning of his struggle with the Anglo-Saxon princes and prelates, seems never to have met with the least sympathy at Canterbury, the natural centre of Roman traditions and authority, and it was never thither that he went to seek a refuge in his troubles. Nothing more strongly proves to what a point national feeling already prevailed, not indeed over the power of love and respect for Catholic unity, but over all that would compromise, even in appearance, the interests or the self-love of the Anglo Saxon Church. Abbot Adrian, the friend and companion of Theodore, like him charged by the Holy See to watch over the maintenance of English orthodoxy, and who survived the archbishop nearly twenty years,-'^ never extended a friendly hand to the man who, not without good cause, declared himself the dauntless champion and innocent victim of Roman unity. The case was the same, as we have already seen, with the illustrious **' He is also called Beorchtwald, and Brithwald. — Guill. Maljiesb., Gesia Reg., i. 29; Hook, vol. i. p. 178.

252 A7iglo- Saxon Chron., an. 690.

2" " Ecelesiasticis simul ac monasterialibus disclplinis summe instructus, tametsi pra;deccssori miniine comparandus." — Bede, v. 8.

25^ He died in 710, having been tliirtj-nine years abbot of the Monastery of St. Peter or of St. Augustin at Canterbury. and holy abbot Benedict Biscop, the founder of several newfoundations, entirely Roman in spirit and heart, in the country, and even in the very diocese of Wilfrid. Is it not necessary to conclude that Wilfrid appeared, at least to his most illustrious contemporaries, to go much too far in his zeal, and to mistake the indispensable conditions of religious peace in England?

Assembly However this may have been, the new archbishop field.''^*'^'^' (who, we may say in passing, holds a place among '03. the saints of the English and Benedictine calendars),255 soon formed an alliance with King Aldfrid. The resentment of this prince had not been disarmed, nor his resolution modified, either by the long exile of Wilfrid, or by the impunity with which Bishops Bosa^^s and John had since occupied the usurped sees of Hexham and York. Tw^elve 3'ears after the last expulsion of Wilfrid, the king convoked an assembly in the plain of Nesterfield, near the Monastery of Ripon, which was one of the principal causes of the struggle. Almost all the British bishops were present, the Archbishop Berchtwald himself presided, and Wilfrid was invited to take part in the proceedings, under a promise that justice would be done him, according to the canon law. He came; but the promise was so far from being kept, that his presence was only made an occasion for heaping recriminations and accusations upon him. Certain bishops, probably those who occupied the sees into which his diocese had been partitioned, distinguished themselves by their bitterness; they were supported by the king, and it must be added, by several abbots, who perhaps disliked the Benedictine rule. An attempt was made to force him into an entire acceptance of all the statutes of the deceased archbishop. Wilfrid replied that he would do all they wished, provided it was agreeable to the canon law. Then turning upon his adversaries, he reproached them vehemently for the obstinacy with which for twenty-two years they had opposed the apostolic authority; he demanded under what pretence they dared to prefer the laws made by the archbishop during the division of the Church of England to the decrees of three popes specially delivered for the salvation

^=' Under the name of Brithwaldus or Brivaut, on 9th January. 256 -yyg ijj^yg already said that this intruder figures among the English saints. Bede also calls himZ^eo diledus et sanctissimus, v. 20. It must be remembered that he, as well as his colleague St. John of Beverley, had been trained in the school of the Abbess Hilda. of souls in Britain? While his adversaries deliberated over the wording of their minutes, a young man attached to tho service of the king, but passionately devoted to Wilfrid, who had educated him along with many other young Saxon nobles, secretly left the royal tent, and, stealing in disguise through the crowd, warned Wilfrid that a treacherous attempt would be made to obtain his signature in approval of all the council might decree — a sort of blank resignation, by means of which he might be deprived of everything he had a lawful right to, whether bishoprics or monasteries, in Northumbria, Mercia, and all other places. " After which," said this secret friend, " nothing would be left for you but to give yourself up, and lose even your episcopal character in virtue of your own signature." ^^^ The actual event to which this warning referred is made known to us by the account given later by Wilfrid himself to the Pope. " I sat," he said, " in my place, with my abbots, priests, and made to deacons, when one of the bishops came to ask, in ^^'"""<*- the name of the king and the archbishop, if I submitted to the archbishop's judgment, and if I was ready to obey what should be decreed with the consent of all, yes or no? I replied that I preferred to know, in the first place, the nature of the judgment before making any engagement. The bishop insisted, saying that he himself knew nothing, that the archbishop would say nothing until I had declared in a document, signed by my hand, that I would submit to his judgment, without deviating to the right or left. I replied that I never had heard of such a proceeding, and that it was unheard-of to attempt to bind the conscience by an oath before it was known what the oath implied. However, I promised before all the assembly that I would obey with all my heart the sentence of the archbishop in everything that was not contrary to the statutes of the holy Fathers, to tho canons, or to the council of the holy Pope Agathon and his

257 (( Muitae ac magnae altercationum quastiones ab cis exortai... consensu quorumdain abbatum qui pacem ecclesiaruin, avaritia instigante, nullatenus habere concupiverunt.... Multis et duris sermonibus eorum pertinaciain increpavit ac interrogavit eos quo fronte auderent.... Unus ex niinistris... quern ille a pritnajvo vagcntis ajtatulae incunabulo cnutrivit, ex tentorio regis latentcr crupit.... Hac fraude te moliuntur decipere, ut primitus per scriptioneni propria; manus confirnies eorum taiituiiimodo judicium... ut postquam isto alligatus fueris districtionis vinculo, de cetero in posterum permutare nuUatenus queas.... Ad postrcmun> temetipsum donando, de tuo sanctitatis honore cum subscriptione dcgraderis." —Eddics, c. 44. orthodox successors." ^^ Then the excitement rose to its the king and archbishop took advantage of it by a proposal to deprive Wilfrid of all that he possessed on either bank of the Humber, leaving him no shelter whatsoever in England. This extreme severity provoked a reaction in his favor, notwithstanding the double force of the royal and archiepiscopal authority. At last it was agreed to leave him the monastery which he had built at Ripon, on condition that he should sign a promise to live there peaceably, not to leave it without the permission of the king, and to give up the exercise of all episcopal functions.^^^ He rejects To this iusultiug proposal Wilfrid replied with appeals"^ ^^^ indignant eloquence, which his companion has Rome. well earned our gratitude by preserving for us. " By what right do you dare to abuse my weakness, force me to turn the murderer's sword against myself, and sign my own condemnation? How shall I, whom you accuse of no fault, make myself a scandal in the sight of all who know that for nearly forty years I have borne, though unworthy, the name of bishop? Was not I the first, after the death of those great men sent by St. Gregory, to root out the poisonous seeds sown by Scottish missionaries? Was it not I who converted and brought back the whole nation of the Northumbrians to the true Easter and the Roman tonsure, according to the laws of the Holy See? Was it not I who taught them the sweet harmonies of the primitive Church, in the responses and chants of the two alternate choirs? Was it not I who constituted monastic life among them, after the order of St. Benedict, which no one had before introduced? And after all this, I am now to express with my own hand a sudden condemnation of myself, with no crime whatever upon my conscience! As for this new persecution, by which you try to violate the sacred character with which I am invested, I appeal boldly to the Holy See. I invite any of you who desire my deposition to go there with me to receive the de- The sages of Rome must learn the causes for which you would degrade me, before I bend to your sole will." At

²⁵⁸ a Erani in concilio sedens cum abbatibus meis.... Respondebam quae erat illius judicii sententia, scire prius oportet, quam confiteamur, utrum pati ea valenius exsequendo, an aliter.... Istius tarn augustam districtionis coarctationem nunquam antea a quoquam hominum coactam audivi." — Eddius, c. 50.

-*" •' Ut ncc in Ultra-Umbrensium regno, nee in Merciorum mininiam quidem unius domuncula; portiunculam haberet. Hujus judicii inclementia ab arcliiepiscopo et rege diffinita." — Eddius, c. 50.

AND THE BENEDICTINE ORDER. 419

these words the king and the archbishop cried out, " He is guilty by his own acknowledgment. He is worthy to be condemned, if only because he prefers the judgment of Rome to ours — a foreign tribunal to that of his own country." And the king added, '^ If you desire it, my ^^^ father, I will compel him to submit by force. At cii breaks" least for once let him accept our sentence." The "^' archbishop said nothing against this proposal; but the other bishops reminded the king of the safe-conduct he had promised — " Let him go home quietly, as we shall all do." ^60 Such clumsy violence, addressed to objects of controversy so out of date, may no doubt cause the learned and the victorious of our day to smile; but the spirit manifested in the war made upon Wilfrid b}^ the king and bishops is one which is never out of date. It is impossible not to be struck by the singular analogy between the means thus used and those that have been employed ever since to obtain the triumph of a bad cause. It is ever astonishing to perceive the clearsightedness with which the Anglo-Saxons, both laymen and ecclesiastics, divined and availed themselves of weapons which seemed reserved for a more advanced state of civilization. Persecution and confiscation are of all ages; but it is a striking proof of the precocious intelligence of the Anglo- Saxons of the seventh century that they thus stigmatized as a crime and anti-national preference for foreigners that instinct and natural law which induces every victim of oppression or violence to seek justice where it is free and independent; and, above all, that they had recourse to that fine invention of a blank signature, a blind assent to the will of another, wrung from those who had been skilfully reduced to the formidable alternative of a Yes or a No. And yet the men who worked by such means wore neither impious nor rascally. On the contrary, King Aldfrid ranks among the most enlightened and justly popular princes of his time.

²⁶⁰ "Constanter et intrepida voce elcvata.... Qua ex causa me compellitis ut tam lugubri calaniitatis miseria in memetipsuni gladium dirva interfectionis... convertam? Nonne si aliquo rcatu suspicionis offendiculum faciam? nonne et ego primus post obituin priorum procerum a sancto Gregorio directorura, curavi ut ScoticaB virulenta plantationis germina eradicarem... aut quomodo juxta ritum primitivae Ecclesiie consono vocis niodulamine hinis adstantibus clioris persultare... instruerem? Et nunc contra me quomodo subitain damnationis ipse protulero, extra conscientiam alicujus facinoris, sententiam? Fiducialiter sedcm appelio apostolicam.... Modo utique culpabilis factus a nobis notatus damnetur, quod magis illorum, quam nostrum elegit judicium." Eddius, c. 44. "Si prajcipis, pater, opprimara eum per violentiam." — Goill. Malmesb., 151, b.

The archbishop, and most of the bishops who persecuted Wilfrid, have been and still are, venerated among the saints. The only conclusion to which we can come is, that the instincts of despotism exist always and everywhere in the human heart, and that unless vigorously restrained and curbed by laws and institutions, they break out even in the best, choosing the same forms,, laying the same snares, producing the same baseness, inspiring the same violences, perversities, and treacheries.

It was not without difScuIty that, after the dispersion of tbe assembly of Nesterfield, the noble old man escaped from the violence of his enemies, and returned to Mercia to his faithful friend King Ethelred. When Wilfrid had repeated all the threats and insults with which the bishops had loaded him " And you," said he to the king, '• how do you intend to act towards me with regard to the lands and goods you have given me ?" " 1," replied the horiremS*"^ sst Ethelred, '' I shall certainly do nothing to add to go great a wrong; nor, above all, to injure the monastic life which now flourishes in our great Abbey of St. Mary; ^si I shall on the contrary maintain it as long as I live, and will change nothing of what I have been able to do by the grace of God, until 1 have sent to Rome ambassadors who will accompany you, and take with them my deeds I hope they will there do me the justice deserved by a man who desires no other recompense." ^^^

But while the generous Ethelred thus promised and continued his protection to the persecuted bishop and to the monks of the Burg of St. Peter, who had always so deeply interested him, the King of Northumbria and his adherents Excom- redoubled their violence and their anger. Sentence munication of excommunication was pronounced against the monks of Ripou, because of their fidelity to the Ripon. cause of their founder, who was at the same time their abbot and bishop. Poor Eddi, who was one of them, relates with indignation how the spoilers, not content with invading the patrimony of Wilfrid, showed and excited every-

*®' The king thus designated the Abbey of Peterborough, first called Medehampstede, and situated on the borders of Mercia and East Anglia, in the fenny country, where at the same period arose Ely, Croyland, Thorney, &c.

**^ "Majorem non addo perturbationem, destruendo monachoruna vitatn... usquequo prius tecum nuntios proprios vel scripta proprietatis ad Romam praemisero interrogare de his imminentibus causis, quomodo recta desiderans salvus inveniar." — Eddicts, c. 45. where, against his disciples and partisans, the horror which attached to excommunicated persons. Food or drink which had been blessed by a monk or priest of Wilfrid's party was thrown away as if it had been offered to idols; and every cup or other utensil touched by a Wilfridian had to be washed and purified before it could be used by these pretenders to orthodoxy .263

The unfortunate excommunicated monks of Ripon, to whom the result of the Assembly of Xesterfield was communicated by the invectives and outrages of which they were the object, consoled themselves as they best could by redoubling their prayers and austerities, and praying night and day, in sorrowful union with all the other Wilfridian monasteries, for their aged and courageous father, who was again about to undertake the long and laborious journey to Rome.20^ Thus Wilfrid again set out, as he had done three times before, to seek enlightenment and justice from the successor of St. Peter. A party of faithful monks accompanied him; but he had no longer the stately train of former days, and it was on foot that he crossed the immense space which divided him from Rome.^^^ And how many other changes were there since his first journey, when the young favorite of Queen Eanfleda travelled, with all the eagerness of a youth of twenty, towards the Eternal City! He was now seventy: he was a bishop, and had been so for forty years, but a bishop robbed of his possessions, expelled from his diocese for the third time, misunderstood, persecuted, calumniated, not only by the wicked and tyrants, but by his brethren in the episcopate, by his hierarchical superior, and by his countrymen. The old saints, the old kings, the good and holy queens, who had encouraged his first steps in the apostolic life, had disappeared, and with them how many friends, how many brothers in arms, how many disciples prematurely snatched from his paternal hopes! Not only the delightful illusions of youth, but also the generous persistence of manhood, had been compelled to give place in his soul to the consciousness

'^^^ " In tantum communionem nostratn exsecraverunt, ut si quispiam... refectionem suam... signo crucis Dei benediceret, foras projiciendam ac eflundondam, quasi idolo-lythum judicabant: et vasa de quibus nostri vescebantur, lavari priiis, quasi sorde polluta jubebant, antequam ab aliis contingerentur." — Eddils, c. 4G.

^** " Die noctuque clamanteB, in jejunio et fletu cum omnibus subjectis nostris congregationibus fundentcs precem." — Eddius, c. 47.

²⁶⁵ "Pedestri gressu." — Eddils, c. 47. of treason and ingratitude and failure — failure a hundred times proved of his efforts, yet a hundred times renewed in behalf of truth, justice, and honor.

Nevertheless he went on and persevered; he held high his white head in the midst of the storm; he was as ardent, eloquent, resolute, and unconquerable in his old age as in the first days of his 3'outh. Nothing in him betrayed fatigue, discouragement, vexation, nor even sadness.

Thus he pressed on, and, after a second stay in Friesland,^^^ crossed the countries of Neustria, Austrasia, and Lombardy, all agitated and eaten up, like other nations, by the struggles and passions of this world; all wasted, desolated, and ruled by the wild license of military and material force. He advanced into the midst of them, bearing in his heart and on his countenance the love of law, a law purely spiritual, which swayed souls, which addressed hearts, and which alone could overcome, regulate, and pacify all those new and different races— a law which can never perish, but which from age to age, even to the end of the world, will inspire in its champions the same courage, constancy, and fervor, which burned in the heart of the aged Wilfrid during his long and fatiguing journey. He was going to Eome, but what might be his reception there? Would any recollection still remain of the brave young pilgrim of the time of St. Martin, the last martyr pope? or of the victorious and admired bishop of the time of St. Agathon, the Benedictine pope? Five other popes had occupied the chair of St. Peter since Agathon.267 During this long interval, no mark of sympathy, no aid had come from Rome to Wilfrid, in all his struggles and sufferings for the cause which he loved to regard as that of the Roman Church and its law, authority, and discipline. And the apostolic throne at this moment was occupied by John VI., a Greek, countryman of that Theodore who had cost Wilfrid so many contradictions and trials.

Pope It was to this pontiff that he and bis companion john VI. presented, on their knees, their memorial, declaring that they came to accuse no one, but to defend themselves

^"^ It is only at this period of Wilfrid's life that I can place his residence in Friesland with his pupil Willibrord, whose successor, Acca, entertained Bede, arid of whom the latter speaks in his Ecclesiastical History, book iii. chap. 3.

-•*' Leo IL, Benedict II., John IV., Conon, Sergius I. From a passage of Wilfrid's speech at Nesterfield, it appears that Popes Benedict IL and Sergius had interposed in his favor, but no trace of their acts on the subject has been preserved. against accusations, by flying to the foot of his glorious see as to the bosom of a mother, and submitting themselves beforehand to all that his authority might prescribe. Accusers could not have been wanting, for there soon arrived envoys from the holy Archbishop Berchtwald, with a written denunciation of Wilfrid.-'^^ The Pope inquired into the matter in a council at which many bishops and all the Roman clergy were present. Eddi, who must have accompanied his bishop to Rome this time also, has preserved the details in full. Wilfrid perceived the necessity of being conciliatory and moderate in his pretensions, and restrained his ambition within the bounds of a humble prayer. He read before the assembly a paper, in which he recalled to its recollection the decrees given in his favor by Popes Agathon, Benedict, and Sergius, and demanded the execution of them in his own name and in that of the monks who had accompanied him to Rome. He then entreated the Pope to recommend King Ethelred to guarantee to him, against all covetousness or enmity, the monasteries and domains which he held from the Mercian kings for the redemption of their souls. Finally, in case the complete execution of the Pontifical decrees, which had ordained his reinstatement in his bishopric and in all his patrimony, should appear too hard to the King of Northumbria, the generous old man consented to give up his diocese of York, with all the monasteries depending on it, to be disposed of at the Pope's pleasure, except his two beloved foundations of Ripon and Hexham, which he asked to be allowed to retain, with all their possessions. In another sitting the messengers of Berchtwald were heard in their turn. They declared, as their chief accusation, that Bishop Wilfrid, in full council at Nesterfield, had cast contempt upon the decrees of the Archbishop of Canterbury, whom the Holy See had placed at the head of all the churches of Great Britain. Then Wilfrid rose, and, with all the authority he derived from his venerable age, related what had really occurred. His tale gained the sympathies of the whole assembly; and the bishops, while showing the most amiable aspect to the friends of Wilfrid, began to talk Greek among themselves, so as not to be understood by the English.''^*^^ They then addressed 268 ti Neminem per invidiam accusandum advenimus.... Interim legati a sancto arcliiepiscopo Berchtvaldo cum suis scriptis accusationis directis... pervenerunt." Eddius, c. 47.

"^^ " Stans episcopus noster, vcncrabili senio confectus, cum friitrilnis suis venerabilihus in conspectu totius congregationis.... Tunc inter se grajcizantes et subridentes nos... loqui cojperunt."

424 ST. WILFRID ESTABLISHES ROMAN UNITY

the Canterbury envoys as follows: " You know, dear brethren, that those who do not prove their chief accusation ought not to be allowed to prove the rest; however, to do honor to the archbishop-legate, and to this holy bishop Wilfrid, we will examine the matter fundamentally in all its details." The council And, in fact, they held, during four months, seventy sittings. This was certainly giving a scrupulous, and, it may be said, amazing attention to a cause which may have appeared to the Italian bishops as but of secondary and far-off interest; and nothing better proves the conscientious solicitude brought by the Church of Rome to bear on the judgment of all causes submitted to her, as well as her unquestionable authority. Wilfrid appeared before his judges almost daily, and underwent a minute examination.^'^'^ In these debates the aged orator displayed all the vigor and energy of his youth. He overturned by a word the most unforeseen objections of his accusers; with a presence of mind, which God and the truth alone could have inspired, he swept away their arguments like spiders' webs: it was a true torrent of eloquence, as says a monastic historian who, many centuries after, was still proud of the effect produced by the words of the old SAxon bishop upon the astonished Romans.^'i Nothing contributed more to the ultimate triumph of Wilfrid than the discovery, made in studying the precedents of the case, of his presence at the council held against the Monothelites twenty-four years before.^"^ In the course of reading the acts of the former council, which was done by order of the Pope, in presence not only of the clergy but also of the nobles and people of Rome, when they came to a passage which proved the presence of Wilfrid, then as now accused, but triumphantly acquitted, and admitted to bear witness to the faith of the other bishops of Great Britain, the assembly was confounded, the reader stopped short, and each man asked himself who this other Wilfrid was.^"^ Then Boniface, an old

2-0 ^{4 1} pgj. quatuor menses et septuaginta conciliabula sanctissimae sedis, de fornace ignis... purificatus evasit. Pene quotidie in conflictu diligenter examinatus." — Eddius, c. 50, 52.

271 u Mirantibus lioiuanis... illius eloquentiara, dum quicquid accusationum objecissent, ille nuUo excogitato response, sed Dei et veritatis fultus auxilio, quasi casses aranearum primo motu labiorum discuteret et subrueret... venerandum senem... torrentem cloquentia;." Gcill. Malmesb., f. 152.

2" See page 388.

273 li Qm^j gj.go causa exigente synodus eadem coram nobilibus etfrequentia populi jubente apostolico diebus aliquot legeretur, ventum est ad locum counsellor of the Pope, who had lived in the time of Agathon, declared that the Wilfrid who was thus again brought to their bar Avas assuredly the same Wilfrid whom Pope Agathon had formerly acquitted and placed by his side as a man of irreproachable faith and life. When this was un- \yiifridi8 derstood, the Pope and all the others declared that acquitted, a man who had been forty years a bishop, instead of being persecuted in this manner, ought to be sent back with honor to his own country; and the sentence of absolution was unanimously pronounced.

The Pope summed up and terminated the entire discussion in a letter to the two Kings of Northumbria and Mercia. After having reminded them of the sentence given by Pope Agathon, and described the regularity of the new trial over which he had himself presided, he enjoined Archbishop Berchtwald to convoke a council along with Bishop Wilfrid, to summon Bishops Bosa and John (who occupied the usurped sees of York and Hexham), and after having heard them, to end the differences between them, if he could; if not, to send them to the Holy See to be tried by a more numerous council, under pain, for the recalcitrants, of being deposed and rejected by all bishops and by all the faithful. " Let your royal and Christian majesties," said the Pope in conclusion, " for the fear of God, and for love of that peace which our Lord Ifeft to His disciples, lend us your help and assistance, that those matters into which, by the inspiration of God, we have fully examined, may have their due effect; and may the recompense of so religious a work avail you in heaven, when, after a prosperous reign on earth, you enter among the happy company of the eternal kingdom." ^"^

Wilfrid thus issued from what his friend calls the furnace in which God completed his purification. He and his followers thought themselves the victors; and although the sentence against his adversaries was neither severe nor definite, the sequel showed clearly that it was all the state of the English mind could endure. It was even Wilfrid's desire, instead of availing himself of the Pope's

ubi scriptura erut Wilfridus Deo amahilis, etc. Quod ubi lectum est, stupor adprehendit audientes: et silente lectore, coeperunt alterutrum requirere quis cssct ille Wilfridus cpiscopus." — Bede, v. 20.

"* " Omnia qua;que in scriptis, vel anterioribus, vel modernis, partes detulerunt, vel hie inveniri potuerunt, vel a partibus verbaliter dicta sunt, subtilitcr inquisita, ad cognitioncm nostram perducta sunt.... Vestra proinde Christiana et regalis Sublimitas... subventum faciat atque coucursum." decision, to remain in Rome and end his days in penitence. He obeyed, however, when the Pope and council constrained him to set out, forbidding him, at the same time, to continue the cold baths which he had every night imposed upon himself as a mortification; and after visiting for the last time all the sanctuaries which were so dear to him, he left Rome, carrying with him a new provision of relics and of rich sacerdotal vestments for the Saxon churches.

He made the return journey not on foot, but on horseback; which, however, was too much for his old age; and this new journey through Italy, the Alps, and France, added to his many travels, affected him so much, that he fell dangerously ill before reaching his destination. After this he had to be carried in a litter, and arrived, apparentj^^ dying, at Meaux. There he lay for four days and nights, his eyes closed, neither speaking nor eating, and in a state of apparent unconsciousness; his breathing alone showed that he still lived. On the fifth day he raised himself in his bed, and seeing round him a crowd of monks, who chanted the psalms, weeping, he said, " Where is my priest Acca? " ^ts This was a monk of Lindisfarne, of great learning and fervor, and an excellent musician, who, though educated by one of the rivals of Wilfrid, the intruding bishop of York, had left his first master to follow Wilfrid for love of Roman orthodoxy, and had accompanied him to Rome on this last and laborious journey.^^^ Seeing his master thus revived, Acca fell on his knees with all present to thank God. Then they talked together with holy awe of the last judgment. On which Wilfrid, having sent away all the rest of his attendants, said to Acca, " I have just had a vision which I will only confido to you, and of which 1 forbid you to speak until I know the will of God regarding it. A being *""" * clothed in white has appeared to me; he told me 2» "Feretro portatus... tantum halitus et calida membra vivum demonstrabant... resedit, apertisque oculis vidit circa se chores psaltentium simul et flentium fratrum.... Ubi est Acca presbyter? " — Eddids, c. 53; Bede, v. 29.

2'^ "Doctissimus... castissimus... in ecclesiasticae institutionis regulis... solertissimus, cantator perilissimus... deinde ad YVilfridum episcopura spe melioris propositi adveniens... cum quo etiam Romam veniens, multa illiequ£e in patria nequiverat, Ecclesiae sanctaj institutis utilia didicit." — Bede, v. 20. Bede dedicated his Ilexameron to Acca, who first became Abbot and then Bishop of Hexham after AVilfrid, and died only in 740. He has a place among the saints, and his miracles are told among those of Wilfrid, —^rf. SS. 0. S. B., vol. iii. p. 204-220. that he was the Archangel Michael, sent to tell me that God had spared my life in answer to the prayers and tears of my brethren and my children, as well as to the intervention of the Holy Virgin His Mother.^'-' He added that I should yet live several years, and should die in ray own country, and in peace, after having regained the greater part of that which has been taken from me." And in fact he did recover, and pursued his journey without any further hinderance.

As soon as he landed in England, he caused his return to be announced to the Archbishop of Canterbury, who, already informed by his envoys of Wilfrid's success at Rome, yielded to apostolic authority, was sincerely reconciled to him, and promised to pronounce the revocation of the decrees of the Assembly of Nesterfield. They had a friendly interview near London, in presence of a multitude of abbots from various monasteries of Wilfrid's party .^'8 From London Wilfrid went to Mercia, but not to lind his friend Ethelred on the throne. The preceding year, in the very midst of Wilfrid's labors at Rome, his old friend had made up his mind to exchange the cares of royalty for the peace of the cloister, and had become a monk at Bardeney, in the monastery where his M'ife, Ostryda of Northumbria, assassinated seven years before by the Mercian lords, had, not without difficulty, succeeded in placing the relics of her uncle, the holy King Oswald.2T9

Ethelred, who had as yet no saint in his own family, thus found a patron both powerful and popular in England, and even elsewhere,^^'^ in the family of his wife; and it was beside the relics of this venerated uncle that he decided to end his life after areignof nearly thirty-oneyears. There Wilfrid

²⁷⁷ " Visio raihi luodo tremenda apparuit.... Adstitit milii quidam.., dicens se Michaelem archan{i;eluni." Bede, v. 19. It was to commemorate this intercession of the Mother of God that Wilfrid on his return to Hexham caused the Church of St. Mary to be erected, of which some ren)ains maybe seen near the great church of the ancient priory; it was of a form quite new in England: ''Ecclesiam construxerat opere rotundo, quam quatuor porticus, quatuor respicientes mundi climata, ambiebant."— .^^luedus, I)e Sanctis Ecclesia; Ilagulstadensis, c. 5.

^''^ " Apostolica auctoritate coactus, et per nuntios sues directis scriptis territus et tremebundus, pacifice et sine simulatione (sicut rei eventus probavit) sancto pontifici nostro reconciliatus est." — Eddius, c. 54.

^'^ See above, p. 299, the resistance of the Mercian monks to the religious practices of the Northumbrian king.

i»o In Friesland and Ireland. — Bede, iii. 13. sought him; and finding his old friend, his generous host, and fiiithful protector, clad in the same monastic habit as himself, and weeping for joy at his return, Wilfrid threw himself into his arms; and the two elapsed each other in this embrace in one of those moments of perfect union and sympathy which God sometimes grants to two generous hearts which have together struggled and suffered in His cause.2^1

The bishop then showed the king the Pope's letter addressed to him, which contained the apostolic judgment, with the bulls and seals all in order. Ethelred, having read it, cried, " 1 will neither infringe it nor allow it to be infringed in the smallest particular while I live; I will support it with all my power." He immediately sent for his nephew, who had succeeded him on the Mercian throne, told him of the Pope's decision, and conjured him to execute it everything connected with the Wilfridian monasteries in their kingdom. The new king promised willingly, with all the eagerness of a man already inclined to that monastic life which he afterwards embraced in his own person.

^^^ Wilfrid was not at the end of his troubles, Mercia had always been to him a friendly and hospitable country. It was a different matter in Northumbria. Ethelred advised him to send to Aldfrid two monks whom the king favored, an abbot and the professor of theology at Ripon, to inquire whether he would receive Bishop Wilfrid with the verdict given at Rome. The king at first made an evasive answer, but on his second interview with these ambassadors, by the advice of his counsellors, he refused. " Dear and venerable brothers," he said to them, " ask what you will for yourselves, and I will give it you willingly; but do not ask anything in behalf of your master Wilfrid; he was judged in the first place by my predecessors in concert with Archbishop Theodore and their counsellors, and afterwards by myself, with the concurrence of another archbishop sent by the Holy See, and almost all the bishops of the country; so long as I live I will change nothing out of regard to what you call a mandate of the Holy See." ^^^ This speech sounds

^*** "Ad Ethelredum... semper fidelissimum amicum, nimirum pro nimio gaudio lachryinantem.... Mitissime eum salutavit, osculantes et amplexantes se invicem; honorifice ab amico more suo susceptus erat." —Eddius, c. 54. Cf. Bedk, v. 19.

^^^ " Sicut consiliarii ejus persuaserunt.... O fratres, mihi ambo venlike an anticipation of the famous Nolumus leges Anglice mvr tare of the English barons in the days of the Plantagenets.

" As long as I live," said King Aldfrid; but he Death of had not long to live. He soon after fell dangerously ill, and believed himself smitten by God, and punished for his contempt of apostolic authority. He openly confessed his sin against Wilfrid, expressed his desire to receive a visit from him before his death, and vowed, if he recovered, to conform to the desires of the bishop and the sentence of the Pope. " If it be the will of God," said he, *' that I should die, I command my successor, whosoever he may be, in the name of the Lord, for the repose of my soul and his own, to make peace with Wilfrid." ^^^ Many witnesses heard these words, and chief among them his sister, Princess Elfleda, Abbess of Whitby, who, since the death of her other brother Egfrid, twenty years before, had been completely won to the interests of Wilfrid.^s* Soon afterwards Aldfrid lost the power of speech, and died. He left none but young children, and the Northumbrian crown descended to a prince named Eadwulf Wilfrid, who had already returned to Kipon, and who, it is not known wl\v, counted on the new king's favor, was preparing to go to him, when Eadwulf, by the advice of his counsellors, and perhaps of the Witena- Gemot, which had misled Aldfrid, gave him to understand that if he did not leave Northumbria within six days, all his followers who could be seized should be put to death.^^-^

But the prosperous days of Northumbria were over, and civil wars were about to destroy the order and prosperity which had reigned there since the establishment of national independence during the great reign of Oswy. Bernicia revolted in the name of the eldest son of Aldfrid. This was a child of eight

erabilos... quia quod ante praedecessores mei rcges ct archicpiscopus cum consiliariis suis consuerunt, et quod postea nos cum archiepiscopo ab apostolica sede einisso... judicaviraus: hoc, inquam, quamdiu vixero, propter apostolicae sedis (ut dicitis) scripta, nunquam volo mutare." — Ed- Dius, c. 55.

283 u i^raeoipio in nomine Domini, quicumque mihi in rcgnum successerit, ut cum Wilfrido episcopo pro remedio animaj meaB et suaspacem et concordiam inoat." — Eddius, c. 56.

2S4 " ^ifieda abbatissa et sapientissima virgo, quae est vere filia regis." —Ihid.

285 ii persuasus a consiliariis suis.... Per salutem meam juro, nisi de regno meo in spatio sex dierum discesserit, de sodalibus ejus quoscumque invenero, morle peribunt." — Eddius, c. 66. years old, named Osred, who was already considered as the adopted son of Wilfrid.^se By means of some mysterious influence, the nature of which is unknovvn, the aged exile Wilfrid, who had been expelled from the country for fourteen years, and was to all appearance forgotten, betrayed, and set aside, became all at once the master of the situation, and the arbiter of events.

He soon acquired a more powerful protector than the young sovereign in the person of an ealderman named Bertfrid, who was considered the most powerful noble in the kingdom, and who was at the head of Osred's party. King Eadwulf marched against the insurgents, and obliged them to retreat to the fortress of Bamborough, capital of the first Northumbrian kings, near the holy isle of Lindisfarne. Bertfrid and his men, shut up in the narrow enclosure of this fortified rock, were reduced to the last extremity, and not knowing what saint to invoke, they made a vow that, if God would deliver them, and give to their young prince the throne of his fiither, they would fulfil exactly the judgment of the Holy See regarding their aged bishop.^^^ Scarcely had this vow been solemnly taken by the besieged when a change took place in the minds of their assailants. A number of Eadwulf s followers forsook him and came to an understanding with Bertfrid, who made a sally at the head of his garrison, by which Eadwulf was vanquished, dethroned, and himself exiled, after a short reign of two months over the kingdom from which he had brutally expelled the venerable bishop.

National -^^ ^'^'^^ ^s the royal child was placed on the assembly throne, the Archbishop of Canterbury made his on the '.. '^,,. -^ banks of appearance, perceiving that the time was come tor executing the apostolic judgment, and definitely settling Wilfrid's affairs in a general assembly. This was held in the open air on the banks of the Nid, a river which flows a little to the south of the fertile plain in which Wilfrid's Abbey of Ripon was situated. The council Avas composed of the three bishops who shared among them the diocese of Wilfrid, and of all the abbots and nobles of Northum-

^*® " Regnavit puer regius... et sancto pontifici nostro filius adoptivus factus est."

^*'^ " Undique circumcincti hostili manu in angustiaque rupis lapideae mansimus; inito consilio inter iios, si Deus nostro regan puero regnum patris cui concessisset, quae mandavit sancta apostolica auctoritas de sancto Wilfrido episcopo adiinplere, Deo spopondimus." — Eddius, c. 57. bria; it was presided over by the archbishop, who had tho king b}^ his side. Wilfrid too was present, and met Abbess eithere his two powerful adherents, Bertfrid and the Abbess Elfleda. This noble and sainted princess, sister of the three last kings of Northumbria, and sister-in-law of two neighboring kings, those of East Anglia and ]\Iercia, was yet more influential on account of her virtues than of her birth. All the Northumbrians regarded her as the consoler and best counsellor of the kingdom. The archbishop opened the sitting with these words, " Let us pray the Holy Spirit to send peace and concord into all our hearts. The blessed Wilfrid and myself have brought you the letter which the Holy See has addressed to me by his hands, and which shall now be read to you."^^^ He then read the pontifical decrees delivered in the different councils at Rome. A dead silence followed; on which Bertfrid, who was universally recognized as the first personage in the kingdom after the king, said, " We do not understand Latin, and we beg that you will translate to us the apostolic message." ^^^ The archbishop undertook the necessary translation, and made all understand that the Pope ordered the bishops to restore to Wilfrid his churches, or that all parties should go to Rome to be judged there, under pain of excommunication and deposition to all opposers, lay or ecclesiastical, even including the king himself.'^^^*^ Nevertheless the three bishops ^^^ (all of whom have places among saints) did not hesitate to combat this decision, appealing to the decrees made by King Egfrid and Archbishop Theodore, and to those of the Assembly of Nesterfield, under Aldfrid. At this point the holy Abbess Elfleda interposed: in a voice which all listened to as an utterance from heaven, she described the last illness and agony of the king her brother, and how he had vowed to God and St. Peter to accomplish all the decrees he had before rejected. " This," she said, *' is the last will of Aldfrid the king; I attest the truth of it before Christ."

^^^ " Rex cum totius regni sui principibus et tres episcopi ejus cum abbatibus, nee non et beata Eanfleda abbatissa semper totius provincise consolatrix, optimaque consiliatrix... sedentibus in loco synodali.... Habemus, enim ego et beatus Wilfridus episcopus, scripta apostolica." —Eddius, c. 57.

289 II j^Qg qyj intcrpretatione indigcmus."

^'^ " Si quis contemnens... sciat se, si rex sit aut laicus, a corpore et sanguine Christi excommunicatum: si vero episcopus aut presbyter... ab omni gradu ecclesiastico degradari."

^'" These three bishops were, Bosa of York, John of Hexham, and Eadfrid of Lindisfarne, bishop since G98.

Bertfrid afterwards spoke in the name of the king, commencing thus: " The desire of the king and nobles is, in all things, to obey the commandment of the Holy See and of King Aldfrid." ^92 He then related the history of the siege of Bamborough, and the vow which bound the consciences of the victors.

General Nevertheless the three bishops would not yield recouciiia- they retired from the assembly to confer among themselves, and with Archbishop Berchtwald, but above all with the sagacious Elfleda. Thanks to her, and thanks also to the extreme moderation of Wilfrid, who required only the minimum of the conditions imposed at Rome, all ended in a general reconciliation. It was decreed that there should be perpetual peace and alliance between the Northumbrian bishops, the king, and the thanes on one side, and Bishop Wilfrid on the other; but that Wilfrid should content himself with his two best monasteries, and the large possessions attached to them — that is, with Ripon, where no new bishopric had been erected, and Hexham, into the see of which he entered; its late titular holder, John of Beverley, being, by a fresh concession made for the sake of peace, removed to York.^^^

As soon as the treaty was concluded, the five bishops embraced, and received the holy communion together. The assembly dispersed amidst general rejoicing, which soon spread all over Northumbria. The most inveterate enemies of Wilfrid were glad of a peace which gave repose to their consciences. But the cloisters and arches of the Wilfridian monasteries echoed with the voice of a more enthusiastic gladness, receiving back again multitudes of disciples and monks, some of whom had been dispersed by persecution and exile, some enslaved by detested masters, who hastened with delight to find themselves once more under the sway of a father whom all the world henceforth considered as a saint, and who had always possessed the faculty of inspiring a passionate affection in his children.^^*

292 (i Episcopi vero resistentes... beatissinia Elfleda abbatissima benedicto siio ore dicebat: Vere in Christo dico teslamentum Aldfridi regis. Prajfatus regis princeps, respondens dixit: Haec est voluntas regis et principuni ejus."

-''^ It is not known what the arrangement was in respect to Bosa, the intruding Bishop of York, who died most opportunely about this time. —Bede, v. 3. As to the bishopric of Lindisfarne, it remained in the hands of the new titular, Bishop Eadfrid.

^'^ "Reddentes ei duo optima caenobia... cum omnibus redditibus suis.... Et haec est maxima beatitudo ex utraque parte, tarn illorura... quam

This was the last act of Wilfrid's public life. It began in that famous assembly where the Celtic Church was bound by his youthful and vigorous influence to the feet of Roman tradition — an assembly which partook at once of the character of a council and a parliament, presided over by King Oswy, in presence of the Abbess St. Hilda, and held at her monastery. He ended his career, after forty years of unwearied struggles, in another assembly of the same kind, held in presence of the grandson of Oswy, and influenced in the highest degree by another Abbess of Whitby, the gentle Elfleda, who was, like Hilda, a saint and a princess of that Northumbrian dynasty with the destinies of which those of Wilfrid were so intimately connected.

It is impossible not to be struck by the great and singular influence exercised over the destiny of Wilfrid by women, or, to speak more correctly, by the Anglo-Saxon princesses whose contemporary he was. It is a peculiarity found in the history of no other saint, and which few historic personages manifest to the same degree. Many, such as St. Paulinus, St. Jerome, St. Augustin, St. Francis d'Assisi, St. FrauQois de Sales, St. Jean de la Croix, have owed to their wives, their mothers, their sisters, and their spiritual friends, a portion of their glory and some of their best inspirations; but we know none whose life has been so completely transformed or modified by the affection or the hatred of women. He was protected in his youth and seconded in his monastic vocation by the granddaughter of St. Clotilda, who then shared the throne of Northumbria; and it was by encouraging another queen of that country, St. Etheldreda, to change her married life for that of the cloister, that he drew upon himself his first misfortune. A third Queen of Northumbria, whom he had indirectly aided to take the place of his spiritual daughter, Etheldreda, persecuted him for two years with a bitterness which she communicated to her sister the Queen of Wessex, and her sister-in-law the Queen of Mercia; and the three together uniting their efforts, used their influence with the kings their husbands to aggravate the distresses of the proscribed bishop, until the time when the Queen of the pagan Saxons of the South, herself a Christian, secured him an asylum, and offered him a nation to convert.

nostrorum, qui per diversa exsilia dispersi, tristes sub alienis dominis servi eranius, nunc enira... capite charissimo... gaudentes et exultantes in benedictione vivimus."

Those princesses who had forsaken the life of the world to p;overn great monastic communities were not less mingled with his stormy career. The abbess-queen of Ely, St. Etheldreda, continued to follow his counsels in the cloister as on the throne. St. Hilda, the Abbess of Whitby, pursued him with an enmity as constant as the affection of her niece while St. Ebba, the Abbess of Coldingham, interfered in his favor, and delivered him from a painful captivity. It has just been seen how St. Elfleda, the sister and daughter of the four Northumbrian kings under whom he had lived, after inheriting the crosier of St. Hilda, came forward as the advocate and protectress of the prelate, contributing more than any other to his last triumph. Finally, he himself, when more than seventy years old, and on his death-bed, left his vestments to her whom he called " his abbess," to Cyndreda, who owes her place in the history of the Church and the history of souls to this latest homage of the aged champion of Rome and of spiritual independence.