bishop at Leicester, but was not finally separated from the mother see until 737." The date given above for the conversion of Mercia, 655, is the date of the laying of the foundation of the monastery of Medeshamstede. Penda had been succeeded on the throne of Mercia by his eldest son, Peada; and he, in conjunction with Oswy, brother of King Oswald, determined to "rear a minster to the glory of Christ and honour of Saint Peter." =Saxulf= (656-675), was the first Abbot. In Bede no mention is made of royal patronage, and the whole credit of founding the abbey is given to Saxulf. Another account represents him as having been a thane of great wealth and renown, and that this abbey was dedicated by him "as the first fruits of the Mercian church." He was made Bishop of Lichfield in 675, but continued to take an active part in the affairs of the abbey. He died in 691. =Cuthbald= (675), is named in the Chronicle as having been second Abbot. One of this name, possibly the same, was ruling the monastery at Oundle in 709, when S. Wilfrid died there. Nothing further is known of him; and nothing at all of =Egbald=, who appears in the usual lists as his successor. The chroniclers give for the fourth Abbot one Pusa. But Bishop Stubbs has proved that =Bothwin= was Abbot from 758 to 789; and concludes that the introduction of Pusa into the list is a mistake, if not a mere invention. Abbot =Beonna= came next, probably in 789 or very soon afterwards. "Possibly this Beonna is the same who was made Bishop of Hereford in 823, and died in 830." =Ceolred= succeeded, and in the year 852 signs a grant of land as Abbot. Patrick conjectures that he became a bishop, but does not name his diocese. There is no certainty about the dates at which these early abbots entered upon their office; and possibly some names have been altogether lost. But all accounts agree that the last Abbot of Medeshamstede was =Hedda=; and that he perished when the monastery was destroyed and its inmates killed by the Danes in 870. A graphic account of the circumstances attending this attack is given by Ingulf; but as authentic historians like Orderic and Malmesbury have no reference whatever to the occurrences described by Ingulf, Bishop Stubbs unwillingly is obliged to consider his version to be a pure romance. But of the fact itself, the utter destruction of the monastery, there is no question; nor of the fact that all the inmates, or nearly all, perished. We read that at Crowland some monks escaped the general slaughter, and met again, after the departure of the Danes, and elected a fresh abbot. They then came to Medeshamstede, and buried the bodies of those that had been murdered, in one vast tomb. It has been commonly supposed that the Monks' Stone, before described, was the stone erected at the time in commemoration of the disaster. The arguments against this supposition have been already given.