After some account of Kentigern’s life at his monastery in North Wales, Jocelyn returns to the north in order to ‘show what his adversaries suffered, how he returned to the Cumbrian region, and what he did there.’ He tells us, after an imaginative account of the fate of those who had driven out Kentigern, that, ‘when the time of having mercy had arrived, that the Lord might remove the rod of his fierce anger and that they should turn unto Him and He should heal them, He raised up over the Cumbrian kingdom a king, Rederech by name, who, having been baptized in Ireland in the most Christian manner by the disciples of Saint Patrick, sought the Lord with all his heart and strove to restore Christianity.’ ‘Wherefore,’ continues Jocelyn, ‘King Rederech, seeing that the Christian religion was almost entirely destroyed in his kingdom, set himself zealously to restore it; and, after long considering the matter in his own mind and taking advice with other Christians who were in his confidence, he discovered no more healthful plan by which he could bring it to a successful result than to send messengers to Saint Kentigern, to recall him to his first see.’ It was by the great battle of _Ardderyd_, fought at Arthuret on the river Esk a few miles north of Carlisle, in which the pagan and Christian parties met in conflict, and a decisive struggle for the supremacy took place between them, that the victory of the Christian chiefs placed Rydderch Hael, or the Liberal, on the throne; and as this battle took place in the year 573, it gives us a fixed date for the recall of Kentigern. He responded to the call, and, having appointed Asaph, one of the monks, his successor, he enthroned him in the cathedral see; and, ‘blessing and taking leave of them all he went forth by the north door of the church, because he was going forth to combat the northern enemy. After he had gone out, that door was closed, and all who witnessed and heard of his egress and departure bewailed his absence with great lamentations. Hence a custom grew up in that church that that door should never be opened save once a year, on the day of St. Asaph, that is, on the kalends of May, for two reasons—first in deference to the sanctity of him who had gone forth, and next that thereby was indicated the great grief of those who had bewailed his departure.’ Jocelyn tells us that six hundred and sixty-five of the monks accompanied him, and that three hundred only remained with St. Asaph.[369] [Sidenote: Kentigern fixes his see first at Hoddam.]