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WILFKID THROWN INTO PRISON. 65
bishops, as he regarded them, being consenting parties.
Everything was taken from him except the clothes
which he wore. The case in which he had brought
rehcs of saints from Rome was seized upon by the
queen Ermcnburga, wlio carried it about with her as
a talisman. None of his friends were permitted to
visit him in his prison cell, and in this captivity he
remained for nine months. l!ut lie never lost heart.
In a dark and gloomy dungeon into which the sun
rarely shone, and where no artificial light was i)erniitted
him, he chanted his Psalter with unfailing
regularity.
Ecgfrid tried in vain to bring hiin to sub-
He promised to reinstate him as bishop of
mission.
a portion, at least, of the diocese he had heretofore
ruled, and added other offers, if only he would repudiate
the authority of the decree which he had brouglit
from Rome. His only answer was that sooner than
do that he would lay his head upon the block and let
the headsman do his office. Soon afterwards, however,
Ermcnburga was taken seriously ill at Coldingham,
where Ebba, the aunt of Ecgfrid, was abbess.
Ebba worked upon her nephew's fears, persuading
him that if he desired his wife's life to be spared he
must set Wilfrid at liberty. This was done. His
reliquary was likewise restored. Wilfrid regained his
freedom and the queen her health. But he was
banished from Northumbria and passed over into
Mercia.
[a.d. 680.] The year which witnessed this untoward
ending of Wilfrid's first appeal to Rome is memorable
also for the death of one of his most strenuous opj^onents.
Hilda, the great abbess of Whitby, who for
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