The real point at issue was the supremacy of the Pope, Egfrid, the King of Northumbria, being strongly opposed to it, whilst Wilfrid and his friends were just as firmly decided in its favour. Wilfrid had for some years been the sole Bishop of Northumbria, his diocese extending from the Firth of Forth to the Humber, and from the Firth of Clyde to the Mersey. Through the entreaty of an aunt of the King's, who was Abbess of Ebba, Wilfrid was at length liberated, but banished from the kingdom. Whilst these disputes were going on, Bosa occupied the episcopal chair of York, and was followed by John of Beverley, who died May 7, A.D. 721. Before this date several monasteries are believed to have been established in Lancashire. Wilfrid II. held the see from 718 to 732, when he was succeeded by Egbert, to whom Bede, now an old man, addressed a letter, the contents of which show clearly that already many abuses had crept into the Church, and that in some of the so-called religious houses luxury and license were more the rule than the exception. Land granted for purely religious purposes, and thus free from secular claims, was used to erect houses, religious in name, but really only dwelling-places for the founders and their people. Egbert, in A.D. 735, was appointed by Pope Gregory III. Archbishop of York, and thus became Primate of the Northern Province, and a few years afterwards his brother, Eadbert, became King of Northumbria. Towards the middle of the ninth century began the invasions of the Danes (see p. 44), which continued until A.D. 867, when the whole of Northumbria was in their possession, and for many years before and after this event the ecclesiastical history of the kingdom is almost a blank. The new occupiers of Northumbria were mostly from Denmark, and were a wild, lawless set of pirates, distinguished for courage, ferocity, and a violent hatred to the newly-established faith. The religion these tribes professed was a worship of Odin and other kindred gods. A great point of difference between the conquerors and conquered (who had both descended from the same race) was that whilst the Danes had continued to worship the gods of their forefathers, and had not forsaken their old profession of sea-pirates, the settlers in Britain had devoted themselves to peaceful pursuits, and had to a great extent adopted the new religion.