All the ecclesiastical events which have been described in this chapter, save the last, took place in the reign of Oswy. In the year 671, as we have seen, a new monarch, Egfrid, ascended the Northumbrian throne. He had already been for some years the nominal husband of one of the saintly members of the East Anglian family, Etheldreda, a daughter of King Anna, but she, though Egfrid was her second husband, was at heart a devoted nun and insisted through life on keeping her virginity unstained. Here was already cause for trouble in the Northumbrian palace, trouble which was aggravated by the interference of Wilfrid, who, in defiance of apostolic precept and the Church’s law, made himself the champion of the cause of the disobedient wife, and at last (probably in the first or second year of Egfrid’s reign) with the hardly won consent of her husband arrayed her in the veil of a “_sanctimonialis femina_”. She retired first to the monastery of Coldingham, then ruled by Ebba, the aunt of Egfrid. After a year’s residence therein she became abbess of the great convent which she had herself founded in the Isle of Ely on lands devised to her by her first husband. There, after bearing rule for seven years, she died. The signal triumph of religious zeal over worldly ambition and luxury which her life displayed was celebrated in enthusiastic and acrostic verse by her admirer Bede. She was undoubtedly one of the most popular saints of the Anglo-Saxon epoch, and her name in the abbreviated form of Audrey still possesses a certain attraction for Englishmen. The place which Etheldreda had vacated by the side of Egfrid was at once filled by a second wife named Ermenburga, who was persistently hostile to Wilfrid, and is accordingly likened to Jezebel by his enthusiastic biographer. There was, however, much in Wilfrid’s position at this, the most glorious period of his career, which might well rouse the jealousy of the secular rulers of the nation. Between 671 and 678 he was probably the foremost man in all Northumbria. He built great basilicas, the marvels of the age, at Hexham[77] and at Ripon.[78] At the dedication of the basilica at Ripon, Wilfrid stood before the altar, which was draped in purple and marvellously enriched with gold and silver, and there rehearsed, in the presence of the Northumbrian kings, the great gifts of landed property which the royal house had bestowed upon the Church, and also enumerated the places which had belonged in old time to the British Church and to which, though then desolate, it was evident that the English Church meant to assert her claim. When his sermon was ended a great feast was spread, to which the kings and all their followers were invited, and which lasted amid great rejoicings for three days and nights.