Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 61.djvu/246

 council held in March 680 against the monophysites, Wilfrid was present as bishop of York, and spoke for the faith of the English Britons, Scots, and Picts. He set out for England, taking with him the decrees of the council to exhibit to Theodore and the king. Passing through Gaul, he found that Dagobert had been slain, and met with some danger on account of the help that he had previously given him.

On arriving in England Wilfrid showed the decrees to Ecgfrid, but the king and his councillors said that he had bought them, and put him in prison at a place called Bromnis. The queen appropriated his reliquary with its contents, kept it in her chamber when she was at home, and took it with her when she went out driving. It is said that while at Bromnis Wilfrid restored to health the wife of the king's reeve who had charge of him, and that the reeve refused to keep him any longer in prison. He was then more closely imprisoned at Dunbar. In 681, after an imprisonment of nine months, his release was procured by Ebba [q. v.], abbess of Coldingham.

On his release Wilfrid sought shelter in Mercia; but the king, anxious not to offend Ecgfrid, who was his brother-in-law, bade him depart. He went thence into Wessex, but there the queen of Centwine was Eormenburh's sister, so he was soon forced to quit the kingdom. He finally took refuge in Sussex, where the king Ethelwalch promised to keep him in safety. Ethelwalch and his queen had been baptised, but their people were heathen, and, though there was a small monastery at Bosham presided over by a Scot named Dicul, refused to listen to the monks. Wilfrid at once began to preach to the people, who were in great trouble, for a three years' drought had been followed by a terrible famine. They could not fish in the sea, being afraid probably to venture into deep water, and so only caught eels. Wilfrid had a number of their eel-nets joined together, and his men went out to fish with them, had a large catch, and so taught the people to fish. In return the South-Saxons listened to his teaching, and, as the drought broke up on a day on which he had baptised a large number, were convinced of its truth. Ethelwalch gave him the land of eighty-seven families in the peninsula of Selsey, his own estate and residence, and Wilfrid baptised all his new tenants. Among them were 250 bondmen and bondwomen, whom he set free on their baptism. He built a monastery at Selsey. While he was in Sussex he befriended an exiled member of the royal house of Wessex named Cædwalla (659?–689) [q. v.], who slew Ethelwalch, overran the country, and about 686 became king of the West-Saxons. Cædwalla gave him for God's service a fourth part of the Isle of Wight, which he conquered after he became king. Wilfrid placed over this new territory his nephew Bernwini, sending with him a priest to help him in mission work, and so the last of the English settlements that received the gospel was evangelised through his instrumentality.

In 686, when Ecgwin was dead, Theodore was reconciled to Wilfrid at London. He wrote letters on his behalf to Aldfrid, the new king of Northumbria, Ælflaed, abbess of Whitby, and Ethelred of Mercia [see under ]. Aldfrid restored Wilfrid, not indeed to his former bishopric, for Lindsey, Lindisfarne, and Hexham had become separate dioceses, but only to the see of York, from which Bosa retired, and to the monastery of Ripon. For five years he retained his bishopric, but he was not content with his change of position. In 691 he was angered by the king's wish to make Ripon an episcopal see, and by a demand that he should acknowledge the validity of the decrees of Theodore for the subdivision of his old diocese. He quarrelled with the king, left York, and took shelter with Ethelred of Mercia, who gave him the bishopric of the Middle English, or of Leicester. While he was at Leicester in 692–3 Suidbert, one of the English missionaries in Friesland, came to him and received consecration from him, an evidence of the interest which he took in the mission carried on there under his old pupil Willibrord [q. v.] He sent an appeal to Pope Sergius, and, probably in consequence of a papal remonstrance, Aldfrid in 702 held a council at Estrefeld or Austerfield in the West Riding, which was attended by Archbishop Brihtwald [q. v.] and nearly all his suffragans. Wilfrid was required to give his assent to the decrees of Theodore. He answered that he would do so ‘according to the rule of the canons,’ a reservation which rendered his assent nugatory, for it meant that he would not give up his claims, which had been approved at Rome. He reproached the council with preferring the decrees of Theodore to the ordinances of three popes. It was at last decided that his monastery at Ripon only should be left him on condition that he would give a written promise to abide there quietly and not to fulfil any episcopal functions. He was thus to pronounce his own deprivation. He indignantly refused to comply with this demand, and appealed to the apostolic see. He returned to Mercia and thence set out