The abbess St. Hilda. In the year of grace 680, the abbess Hilda, after spending thirty-three years of her life in the habit of holy religion, departed out of this world unto the Lord. This most blessed virgin, who was of the noble stock of king Eadwin, was converted to the faith by the preaching of Paulinus, after which she quitted the secular habit, and proposed to cross over to the monastery of Cale, where her sister Hereswitha, mother of Aldulph, king of the East-Angles, was happily serving God. But she was retained by bishop Aidan, and made abbess of Hertesey, and afterwards in the monastery of Streneshale, which she had herself founded, where she so instructed her clergy in the institutions of the church, that five of thein attained to the episcopal dignity ; to wit, Bosa and Wilfrid in York, Hedda in the church of Dorchester, John in the church of Hagustald, Ostford in the province of the Wiccii, which was then governed by king Osric; Tadfrid too was elected from her monastery, but was prevented by an early death. Her mother had had a dream, in which she was seeking her husband and could not find him, but discovered under her garment a precious neck-lace, which illuminated all the coasts of Britain. At length the most holy Hilda had an illness which lasted six years, that her soul might be tried by the long affliction of her flesh, and that her virtue might be perfected in weakness : in the seventh year of her fever she passed from death unto life. A t the hour of her departure, a certain man saw her soul carried to heaven by angels, where with Christ she is solaced with eternal joys. The same year, Theodore, archbishop of Canterbury, held a council in a place called Heathfield, in the sixth year of the reign of Athelred, king of the Mercians, in the reign of Eadwulf, king of the East-Angles, who reigned after Athelwold, and in the reign of Egfrid in Northumberland, and of Kentwin, in the kingdom of the West-Saxons, Theodore, archbishop of Canterbury presiding, with his suffragan bishops, and many others. The gospels being laid before them, Theodore delivered to all the holy fathers present a -creed in writing to this effect, " W e acknowledge the holy