to be bishop in his stead ; and when he died, five years after, Boniface succeeded in his room. The same year, Peada was raised by his father Penda to the kingdom of Mercia, and being in all respects worthy of the name of king, he came to Oswy, king of Northumberland, and begged of him that he would give him his daughter Effleda, to be his wife ; but he could not obtain that, unless he, and all the nation which he governed, received the faith of Christ. He, therefore, having heard the preaching of the truth, and the promisee of the kingdom of heaven, and being persuaded by Alfred, his friend, the son of Oswy, whose sister, by name Kiniburga, was his wife, was baptized by bishop Finan, with the whole of his family, in the royal town, which is called Atwall. And having received four priests, with a view to the conversion of his nation to the faith, he returned with joy to his own land ; and these priests coming into that province, preached the word of God, and the great body of the nation submitting themselves to them, renounced the foulness of idolatry, and were regenerated in the fountain of the faith. Nor did Penda, though he was a most atrocious Pagan, forbid the word of God to be preached in his nation, that is to say, in the nation of the Mercians, saying that those men were wretched and contemptible who refused to obey the God in whom they believed. A.D. 651. After causes of dissension had arisen between the kings of the Deiri and of the Bernicians, namely, between Oswy and Oswin, they each collected as numerous an army as they could for battle ; but just as they were on the point of engaging in the place which is called uHilfarertluiu, Oswin, seeing that his forces were unequal to those of bis: enemy, sent back the army which he commanded, and ordered them all to return home, and went to lodge himself with a single soldier, named Tonherus, in the house of a Count Hunwald, whom he belived to be very friendly to him ; but he turned out very different, for he was betrayed by this same count, and so Oswy sent his general, named Ethelwin, to put the king to death. And when Oswin heard of his approach, he immediately went forth to meet the swords of the wicked, and the victors rushing upon him, slew him, with his soldiers, in the place which is called Sfugttltngen, by a most detestable death. And so Oswin followed the example of his Saviour, for he too, when he was on his road to his passion, and the Jews were demanding that he should be crucified himself, asked them