king of Kent, as far as his province is concerned, takes much from his glory, the chief thanks are due to Oswy.[71] Moreover he built numerous habitations for the servants of God, and so left not his country destitute of this advantage also. The principal of these monasteries, at that time for females, but now for males, was situate about thirty miles north of York, and was anciently called Streaneshalch, but latterly Whitby. Begun by Hilda, a woman of singular piety, it was augmented with large revenues by Elfled, daughter of this king, who succeeded her in the government of it; in which place also she buried her father with all due solemnity, after he had reigned twenty-eight years. This monastery, like all others of the same order, was destroyed in the times of the Danish invasion, which will be related hereafter, and bereaved of the bodies of many saints. For the bones of St. Aidan the bishop, of Ceolfrid the abbat, and of that truly holy virgin Hilda, together with those of many others, were, as I have related in the book which I lately published on the Antiquity of the Church of Glastonbury, at that time removed to Glastonbury; and those of other saints to different places. Now the monastery, under another name, and somewhat restored as circumstances permitted, hardly presents a vestige of its former opulence. To Oswy, who had two sons, the elder who was illegitimate being rejected, succeeded the younger, Egfrid, legitimately born, more valued on account of the good qualities of his most pious wife Etheldrida, than for his own; yet he was certainly to be commended for two things which I have read in the history of the Angles, his allowing his wife to dedicate herself to God, and his promoting the blessed Cuthbert to a bishopric, whose tears at the same time burst out with pious assent.[72] But my mind shudders at the bare recollection of his outrage against the holy Wilfrid, when, loathing his virtues, he deprived the country of this shining character. Overbearing towards the suppliant, a malady incident to tyrants, he overwhelmed the Irish, a race of men harmless in genuine simplicity and guiltless of every crime, with incredible slaughter. On the other hand, inactive towards the rebellious, and not following up the triumphs of his father, he lost the dominion of the Mercians, and moreover, defeated in battle by Ethelred the son of Penda, their king, he lost his brother also. Perhaps these last circumstances may be truly attributed to the unsteadiness of youth, but his conduct towards Wilfrid, to the instigation of his wife,[73] and of the bishops; more especially as Bede, a man who knew not how to flatter, calls him, in his book of the Lives of his Abbats, the most pious man, the most beloved by God. At length, in the fifteenth year of his reign, as he was leading an expedition against the Picts, and eagerly pursuing them as they purposely retired to some secluded mountains, he perished with almost