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36 YORK.
he will soon die.
a ruler." 1
This people are not worthy of such
[A.n. 651, Aug. 31.] Aidan did not long survive
him. Within twelve days after Oswin's murder he
too rested from his labours. He died at Bamburgh,
after a sudden and brief attack of illness, on the 31st
August, 651.
The relations of Aidan with the Bernician king up
to the time of Oswin's murder had been such as
befitted their relative positions. He took interest
in the negotiations which Utta, the superior of a
monastery at Gateshead, had been authorised to
enter into for obtaining for Oswy the hand of Eanfleda,
the daughter of Edwin and the cousin of
Oswin. It was at his invitation that another kinswoman
of Edwin came into Northumbria, who was
destined in after years to occupy one of the most
prominent positions in the church of that province
ever occupied by one of the female sex. This was
Hilda, the grand-niece of Edwin, who, as has been
already mentioned, was admitted into the fold of
Christ by Paulinus. She came into Northumbria
from East Anglia. After a short abode with a few
companions on the northern bank of the AVear, she
became the head of a sisterhood at Hereteu, or
Hartlepool. The interments of some of the inmates
of this little nunnery were discovered in 1833. Some
of the inscribed stones which marked their restingplaces
are still preserved. From this place " the
abbess Heiu, the first of all Northumbrian women to
receive the monastic habit from Aidan's own hand,
'
Bede's " Ecclesiastical History," p. iii. 14.