Hereford as an ecclesiastical centre is one of the most ancient in Great Britain, but until the commission of Offa's grievous crime it must have been comparatively unimportant, with a small wooden structure for a church. Offa's perfidy changed all that. It will be remembered that the ruthless prince treacherously induced Ethelbert, King of the East Angles, to visit his Court, where he had him foully murdered, and buried in the church. Offa, of course, then seized Ethelbert's crown. Having secured this, and being safely installed in the place of his murdered guest, he found time to repent; and that his repentance might seem the more real, he endowed with great riches the church in which lay the body of his victim, and soon the wooden building gave place to a stone edifice. No doubt the king's offerings greatly assisted in founding Hereford on a solid ecclesiastical basis, but the effect of his gifts was evanescent, compared with the value of his victim's bones, as an attraction to the devout. Ethelbert's remains had not long been buried in the cathedral ere they began to work miracles, and soon great numbers of people from near and from afar sought the good saint's assistance, so that great riches flowed to the church and town; and from that day to this Hereford has continued to prosper. For two hundred years the church built over the bones of Ethelbert stood, before the Welsh, as has been told, laid the place in ruins. In 1079 Bishop Robert of Lorraine began to rebuild, and the work was not completed until early in the sixteenth century. This is the building--many times restored--that stands to the present day. More than a hundred years ago (in 1786) the western tower collapsed, bringing down with it most of the west front, and this, as well as many other parts of the cathedral, was rebuilt.