After Columba’s death, the monastery of Iona appears to have been the acknowledged head of all the monasteries and churches which his mission had established in Scotland, as well as of those previously founded by him in Ireland. To use the words of Bede, ‘This monastery for a long time held the pre-eminence over most of those of the northern Scots, and all those of the Picts, and had the direction of their people,’[292] a position to which it was entitled, as the mother church, from its possession of the body of the patron saint.[293] Of the subsequent abbots of Iona who succeeded Columba in this position of pre-eminency, Bede tells us that, ‘whatever kind of person he was himself, this we know of him for certain, that he left successors distinguished for their great charity, divine love and strict attention to their rules of discipline; following, indeed, uncertain cycles in their computation of the great festival (of Easter), because, far away as they were out of the world, no one had supplied them with the synodal decrees relating to the Paschal observance; yet withal diligently observing such works of piety and charity as they could find in the Prophetic, Evangelic and Apostolic writings.’[294] [Sidenote: A.D. 597-599. Baithene, son of Brendan.] According to the law which regulated the succession to the abbacy in these Irish monasteries, it fell to the tribe of the patron saint to provide a successor; and Baithene, the cousin and confidential friend and associate of Columba, and superior of his monastery of Maigh Lunge in Tiree, who was also of the northern Hy Neill, and a descendant of Conall Gulban, became his successor, ‘for,’ says the Martyrology of Donegal, ‘it was from the men of Erin the abbot of I was chosen, and he was most frequently chosen from the men of Cinel Conaill.’ He appears to have been designated by Columba himself as his successor, and to have been at once acknowledged by the other Columban monasteries; for Adamnan tells us that Finten, the son of Tailchen, had resolved to leave Ireland and go to Columba in Iona. ‘Burning with that desire,’ says Adamnan, ‘he went to an old friend, the most prudent and venerable cleric in his country, who was called in the Scotic tongue Columb Crag, to get some sound advice from him. When he had laid open his mind to him, he received the following answer: “As thy devout wish is, I feel, inspired by God, who can presume to say that thou shouldst not cross the sea to Saint Columba?” At the same moment two monks of Columba happened to arrive; and when they remarked about their journey, they replied, “We have lately come across from Britain, and to-day we have come from Daire Calgaich,” or Derry. “Is he well,” says Columb Crag, “your holy father Columba?” Then they burst into tears, and answered, with great sorrow, “Our patron is indeed well, for a few days ago he departed to Christ.” Hearing this, Finten and Columb and all who were there present fell on