The result was that Coifi undertook to desecrate his gods, assuming sword and spear, and mounting a stallion, forbidden to priests. Great was the astonishment and awe of the people as the royal party rode towards the temple. As Coifi approached he brandished his spear, and hurled it into the building. As it clashed upon the floor an awful cry burst from the priests, but no dire catastrophe followed, and fire being applied to the temple, building and gods were alike consumed. The impotence of the pagan gods established, the conversion of the people rapidly followed, and the wise and good King reigned over a flourishing state for several years. Unhappily, the virtues of the King and the affection of his subjects were no protection from misfortune, and the chequered life went down in ruin and defeat. Penda, the pagan King of Mercia, a wretch inured to crime, entered into a confederacy with Cadwalla, King of North Wales, and, after vowing to compass the destruction of all the Christians in the island, marched against King Edwin. The royal Northumbrian was neither slow to mass his troops nor meet his arch-enemy; but the triumph that had so often attended his arms was not vouchsafed in this inauspicious hour; and when the terrible waves of battle rolled against each other at the village of Hatfield, near Doncaster, in the October days of 633, his throne and crown went down in the fierce storm, though brave men flung themselves before his banners, and struggled with the savage foe as long as life lingered in the hacked and bleeding frame. Falling with honour in the van of battle, Edwin breathed out his life amidst the roar of the contending hosts, and so the day darkened ere the night closed on Christian Northumbria. By the King's side fell his son, the gallant young Osfrid, and the slaughter of the defeated army being very great, a season of extreme depression ensued. Great as the confusion was, the dead King received the last melancholy offices, his head being buried in the porch of the church at York, and the Abbey at Whitby receiving his body.