κ.Ό. 086.] CEDWALLA KING OF WESSEX. . blessed man. A certain priest there, admonished by the Spirit of God, took up a small quantity of earth, in a spot where he knew the water, which had been used for washing the deceased body of the blessed father had been poured ; and after dipping it in water, put it into the mouth of the patient. As soon as he touched the water, he ceased his raving, and after a night of tranquil sleep, in the morning he confessed himself to have been delivered by virtue of the blessed father Cuthbert. Eleven years after his burial, when his body was, as they imagined, reduced to dust, God put into the hearts of the brethren to lay up his dry bones in a light coffer. On communicating their design to Eadbert, he expressed his approbation, and gave orders that it should be done on the anniversary of his burial. On opening the sepulchre, they found the body perfectly sound and the joints supple, as though he were alive, much more like a sleeping than a dead person, insomuch that all his garments, in which he had been buried, as became a bishop, were found quite entire. A t this season there was an eclipse of the moon in the eighth indiction ; the sun was also eclipsed on the 4th of May about ten o'clock ; and the same year there followed a terrible pestilence, through the months of July, August, and September ; there was also a great mortality at Rome. This pestilence so depopulated Ticinum, that herbs and shrubs grew within the city, the inhabitants having fled to the mountains : two angels were seen going through the city, the one a good, the other an evil one ; the latter carried a hunting spear in his hand, and as many times as he struck with it the door of any house by the command of the good angel, so many corpses were carried forth from that house on the following day. It was then revealed to certain men of that city, that the plague would not cease, until an altar of St. Sebastian the martyr should be built in the church of the blessed apostle Peter called " Ad Vineula." The relics of the aforesaid martyr were therefore fetched from Rome, and as soon as his altar was erected in the said church, the pestilence presently ceased : at the same time, on the death of Kentwin, king of the West-Saxons, Cedwalla, king of the Britons, took possession of that kingdom, where he reigned two years. There is found a discrepancy between the history of the Britons and the English Chronicles re-VOL. ι. ι