Armed with this papal decree, and not doubting of the triumph which it would procure for him, Wilfrid presented himself at the Northumbrian court, but was at once accused of having obtained the decree by bribery, thrown into prison and despoiled of his personal possessions. One of the most precious of these, a reliquary, was appropriated by Ermenburga to her own use, and always carried about by her, whether she abode in her bedchamber or rode abroad in her chariot. Wilfrid’s first place of imprisonment was the royal city of Bromnis.[80] On the refusal of the governor, whose wife had fallen dangerously ill, to act any longer as jailer of so holy a man, Egfrid sent him to another of his cities named Dynbaer (Dunbar), another proof, if any were needed, how far northward at this time stretched the kingdom of Northumbria. At last after he had undergone a rigorous imprisonment for nine months, the dangerous illness of Ermenburga (which seemed to take the form of demoniac possession), and the entreaties and warnings of the saintly Ebba, brought about Wilfrid’s liberation from the dungeon, but not his restoration to his bishopric. He went forth as an exile into Mercia, where he was favourably entertained by a nephew of King Ethelred and received land for the foundation of a monastery. But as Ethelred was Egfrid’s brother-in-law, he soon ordered Wilfrid to quit his kingdom. He turned his steps to Wessex and there for a little space had rest, but soon was expelled thence also, King Centwine having married Ermenburga’s sister. It is easy to see how hard the lot of a fugitive from one of the English courts might be made by the matrimonial alliances that were so frequent between them. Thus expelled from Christian England the hunted fugitive turned his thoughts to the land of the South Saxons: “a heathen province of our race” (says the biographer) “which for the multitude of its rocks and the density of its woods remained impregnable by all the other provinces”. Here Ethelwalh, himself a Christian, as we have seen,[81] was reigning over a still heathen people, and to him Wilfrid confided the whole story of his wrongs. The king made with him a covenant of peace so strong that, as he declared, no terror of the sword of any hostile warrior and no gifts however costly should avail to move him from the troth then plighted. In this inaccessible corner of the land which we now name Sussex, Wilfrid remained for five years, preaching the story of the creation of the world, its redemption, the day of judgment, the rewards and punishments to come, with such eloquence and fervour that he achieved the conversion of the entire people, thus ending in the year 686 the long spiritual campaign for the conversion of England which was begun in 597 by the arrival of Augustine. King Ethelwalh gave him his own villa of Selsey for his episcopal seat, adding to it a gift of land amounting to eighty-seven hides.