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32 YORK.
For eight years Oswald ruled Northumbria.
He was
a wise and sagacious sovereign, and " was to Christians
all that Edwin had been, and more : in reading
of him we think instinctively of Alfred. Strength
and sweetness were united in a character which
almost represents the ideal of Christian royalty."^
His rule extended far beyond Bernicia and Deira.
The Picts and Scots, as we learn from Bede, accepted
his authority with a willing submission. He might
be designated as the over-lord of Britain. His administrative
capacity was obviously great, and to that
was superadded the deepest and sincerest piety. His
devotion equalled that of the holy men who inhabited
the monasteries of lona or Lindisfarne. The darkness
and silence of the midnight hours not unseldom
echoed the prayers and praises of the saintly king, and
the very attitude which his hands most naturally
assumed bore silent witness to his custom of "praying
everwhere, lifting up holy hands." His humility
in the midst of all the outward pomp and state of a
king was remarkable, as was also his lo\ ing charity to
the poor of Christ. The latter was shown on one
occasion by his sending off the untasted meat from
his own table to feed a thronging crowd of hungry
applicants, and then ordering a silver dish on which
some of his viands had been ser\'ed to be broken into
small fragments of the precious metal and divided
amongst them.
But his reign was to end all too soon for the
onward march of Christianity at that time in Northumbria.
The ancient enemy of his predecessor,
' Bright's "Early English Church Histoiy,'" p. 132.