york00orns

WILFRIDS RETURN TO NORTHUMBRIA. 75
was consecrated as its bishop. It was a practical
admission on Wilfrid's part of the need there was of
a subdivision of his enormous diocese.
For some time things went on smoothly, but before
the expiration of five years from Wilfrid's return
clouds gathered in the ecclesiastical horizon of
Northumbria. The storm soon broke. Wilfrid loved
power, and he ill brooked any curtailment of privileges
which he had once enjoyed. Dissensions arose
between him and Aldfrid. They had their origin from
his own ambitious temper. He claimed to be reinstated
in the possession of certain lands which had
formerly been given to the Church of St. Peter, and
of which he had been unjustly deprived. He regarded
with strong aversion the permanent establishment of
a bishop of Ripon, and above all he resisted the
attempt which was made to enforce his compliance
with the decrees of Theodore, those, namely, which '
provided for the partition of the great diocese of
Northumbria. Of the details of his quarrel with
Aldfrid we are ignorant. Bede tells us nothing, and
Eddi gives no particulars. All we are told by the
latter is
that Wilfrid would assent to none of Aldfrid's
arrangements, and betook himself to Ethelred, king
of Mercia, who, "out of reverence for the Apostolic
see, received him with all possible honour."
In Mercia he acted as a bishop, and administered
the see of Leicester. One of his episcopal acts was
the consecration of Swidbert for the Frisian mission.
Eleven years passed over and found him still in
Mercia. Bosa appears to have been reinstated in the
episcopal chair of York. But Wilfrid evidently