At these words Elfleda’s tears began to flow. She felt that the wise old hermit saw that the mad as well as wicked expedition of her brother must end fatally. Presently, drying her tears, she continued with feminine boldness to inquire who would be the king’s successor, since he had neither sons nor brothers. “Say not so,” replied Cuthbert. “He shall have a successor whom you will love, as you as a sister love Egfrid.” “Tell me,” pursued Elfleda, “where can this successor be?” Then he turned his eyes to the islands dotting this coast, and said: “How many islands there be in this mighty ocean! Surely thence can God bring a man to reign over the English.” Elfleda then perceived that he spoke of a young man, Alcfrid, supposed to be the son of her father Oswy by an Irish mother, and who had been a friend of Wilfrid, and was now in Iona, probably hiding from his brother, whom he could not trust. The venerable Cuthbert was not out in his conjecture. On May 20th, 684, Egfrid was drawn into a pass at Drumnechtan, in Forfar, was surrounded by the Scots and Picts, slain, and the great bulk of his men cut to pieces. “From that time,” says Bede, “the hopes of the English crown began to waver and retrograde; for the Picts recovered their own lands, which had been held by the English.” Alcfrid at once left Iona, and was chosen king. He was a good and just prince, much under the influence of Wilfrid and inclined to adopt Roman fashions. It becomes necessary now to speak of a controversy that rent the unity of the Church in England. All Northumbria, Mercia and Essex had received the faith from Iona, the monastic capital of the Scots, whereas Kent and Wessex had received it from Rome. Iona had been founded in 563 by S. Columba, an Irishman; and it was from Iona that S. Aidan, the Apostle of Northumbria, had been sent. Lindisfarne, the seat of the Bishops of Northumbria, was a daughter of Iona. Now, there were certain differences between this Celtic Church and that of Rome and Gaul. In the first place, the Britons and Irish had been cut off from communication with the rest of Europe by the troubles that afflicted the Empire as it fell into ruin under the blows of the Barbarians. Consequently they were unaware that a change had been agreed on in the observance of Easter. It was discovered in 387 that the system of calculating Easter was erroneous, and Pope Hilary employed one Victorinus to frame a new cycle, which was thenceforth followed in the Latin Church. But of this change the British and Irish Church knew nothing; and when Augustine and his followers arrived in Kent they found that the ancient Church of the Britons observed Easter on a different day from themselves.