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DISCUSSION BETWEEN WILFRID AND ECGFRID. 6
least, was under his spiritual care. Such was Wilfrid
in the plenitude of his early power. But trouble was
nigh at hand. Oswy was no longer living. He died
on 15th February, 670, and was buried in the church
of Whitby. Ecgfrid his son succeeded him. For
some time the relations between him and Wilfrid were
amicable, but a subject of dissension arose, which
caused a wound which was never healed. Ecgfrid's
first wife was Etheldreda, the donor of the territory
which Wilfrid made the seat of his monastery at
Hexham. She was an unwilling bride, and though a
wife in name, insisted upon living as though she were
a cloistered nun. At last she actually took the veil
at Coldingham, and Wilfrid was believed to have
received her profession. At all events he promoted
her escape to Ely, and made her abbess of that
monastery.
After this Ecgfrid married a second wife, Ermenburga,
a woman of fierce and violent temper, who
conceived a bitter hatred
against Wilfrid, and aggravated
her consort's feelings against him by fomenting
a jealousy of the wealth and influence which the
great bishop had attained.
It was undoubtedly great
in more ways than one. It was great in ecclesiastical
matters. Richard of Hexham calls him " the father
of nine monasteries," and says that many abbots and
abbesses " commended their houses to his keeping,
others named him their successor." He lived in a
style of princely grandeur, attended at home and followed
when he travelled abroad by a host of retainers.
There can be little doubt that Theodore was not
long in England before he began to form plans for a