St. Hilda was the nursing-mother of the infant Saxon Church; the instructress of Bishops; the preceptrix of scholars and learned men; and the patroness of CÆdmon, the first Saxon Christian poet—the Milton of his age. The Abbey over which she ruled with so much piety and prudence was, during her life and afterwards, one of the great centres of civilization and Christian light of the kingdom of Northumbria, and diffused its rays, beaming with celestial radiance, even beyond the bounds of that great northern monarchy.

She was a scion of the royal race of Ælla, the founder of the kingdom of Deira, or Southern Northumbria; the daughter of Hererick (nephew of Eadwine, King of Northumbria), by his wife the Lady Breguswith; was born in the year 614, and died in 680. She was converted to Christianity by the preaching of Paulinus, and was baptised along with her great-uncle and his court, in 627. Six years afterwards Eadwine was slain in battle by Penda, the heathen King of Mercia, and the nascent religion of Christianity stamped out, Paulinus flying for shelter with the widowed Queen and her children, to the court of her brother, the King of Kent. What became of Hilda during this period of anarchy we know not; but it seems evident that the afflictions and persecutions she underwent served only to deepen her faith and cause her to cling more closely to the Cross of Christ.

In 647, when she was thirty-three years of age, she resolved upon devoting her life entirely to the service of God, and with that view journeyed into East Anglia, where her nephew Heresuid reigned as King, and where her cousin, the pious Anne, resided. Her intention was to proceed hence to Chelles, in France, to join her sister, St. Herewide, who had retired to a nunnery there; but for some reason or other she lingered for twelve months in East Anglia. At the end of this period she was granted a plot of land on the Wear, upon which she erected a small house and resided there, in modest seclusion, for the space of a year, when the fame of her piety having spread abroad, she was appointed Abbess of Hartlepool, a nunnery founded by Hein, the first woman who assumed the nun's habit in Northumbria, and who had now retired to the nunnery of Calcaceaster (Tadcaster). In her new capacity she set about her work with devoted zeal, regulating the discipline, reforming abuses, promulgating new and wholesome rules, and enforcing a strict attention to religious duties, in which she was aided by the counsels of her friend Aidan, Bishop of Lindisfarne, who, at the instance of King Oswald, had come from Iona to re-convert his subjects to the faith which had been trampled out by Penda.

In the year 642, Oswald, the second founder of Christianity in Northumbria, fell, like his predecessor Eadwine, under the ferocious sword of Penda, and was succeeded by Oswy in Bernicia, and Oswine in Deira; but in 650, Oswy caused the king of Deira to be murdered, and assumed the sceptre of Northumbria, north and south. Five years after this, Penda, with unabated zeal for his god—Woden—again made an inroad into Northumbria, with the intent of slaying the third Christian king of that realm. At first Oswy attempted to buy him off by bribes, but the Mercian potentate refused his offers, declaring that nothing would content him but the death of the King, and the utter extirpation of Christianity. "Then," said Oswy, "if the pagan will not accept our gifts, we will offer them to one who will—the Lord our God;" and he prepared for battle, making a vow that if God would vouchsafe him the victory he would erect a monastery, endow it with twelve farms, and dedicate his newly-born daughter to holy virginity and His service. With a comparatively small force, he marched against Penda, "confiding in the conduct of Christ," met him near Leeds, and, as the Saxon chronicle says, "Slew King Penda, with thirty men of the Royal race with him, and some of them were kings, among whom was Ethelhere, brother of Anne, King of the East Angles; and the Mercians became Christians."

This great and decisive victory, the last conflict in England between heathendom and Christianity, was the turning-point in Hilda's career of eminence. Had Penda again been the victor, Northumbria would again perhaps have lapsed into paganism, and the future saint never have been heard of beyond the vicinity of Hartlepool.

As it was, King Oswy, mindful of his vow, erected a monastery at Streoneshalh, on the bank of the Esk, where it falls into the sea in Whitby Bay. It was placed on a lofty headland, with a steep ascent from the little fishing hamlet at its foot and a precipitous escarpment to the sea. It was formed for both male and female recluses, and the fame of Hilda for piety and judicious government was such that she was selected by the King as the most fitting for the government of the establishment. Under her rule Streoneshalh became not only a model monastic house, but a great school of secular and theological learning. During her superintendence, not less than five of her scholars attained the mitre, all of them illustrious prelates of the Saxon Church—St. John, of Beverley; St. Wilfrid, of Ripon; and Bosa, Archbishops of York; Hedda, Bishop of Dorchester; and Oftfor, Bishop of Worcester. "Thus," says Bede, "this servant of Christ, whom all that knew her called 'mother,' for her singular piety and grace, was not only an example of good life to those that lived in her monastery, but afforded occasion of amendment and salvation to many who lived at a distance, to whom the fame was brought of her industry and virtue." Fuller observes, "I behold her as the most learned female before the Conquest, and may call her the she-Gamaliel at whose feet many learned men had their education." During her Abbacy, the famous Synod, convened by King Oswy, was held within the walls of Streoneshalh, to settle the vexed questions of the time for the celebration of Easter, and of the tonsure, which were subjects of warm dispute between the ancient British Church and that of Rome, the Northumbrians adhering to the former, as inculcated by the missionary monks of Iona, who had been brought hither by Oswald, and who now occupied the sees of York and Lindisfarne. The King, who had been educated in Scotland, and consequently held to the British modes, presided, whilst his son, Prince Alfred, who had been in Rome, supported the Romanist views.

On the British side were ranged the Abbess Hilda, Colman, Bishop of Lindisfarne, and the venerable Cedd, Bishop of the East Saxons; on the Romanist, Agilbert, Bishop of the West Saxons, Wilfrid of Ripon, then a priest, Romanus, and James the Deacon. The dispute was settled in favour of the Romish rule, chiefly through the eloquence and force of argument of Wilfrid, who afterwards made so conspicuous a figure in the Northumbrian Church; and Colman, with his British clergy returned to Iona. The Abbess was as famous for miracles as for her other qualities. On the coast of Whitby are found great numbers of specimens of the petrified Cornu Ammonis, commonly called snake stones, resembling as they do coiled-up snakes, without heads. This is how their origin is accounted for. When the Abbey was first built, the neighbourhood was infested by snakes, which were a great annoyance to the brethren and sisters of the monastery, and the Abbess, by means of prayer, caused them all to be changed into stone.

The Abbess founded some cells in divers places dependant on the Abbey, one of which was at Hackness, near Scarborough, which she made use of as a retreat from the bustle and cares of Streoneshalh, where she could, undisturbed, devote her time more strictly to the exercises of fasting, prayer, and meditation, returning to her duties at the Abbey refreshed and invigorated spiritually, and the better enabled to undergo the distractions incident to her position as head of a community of differing and often perplexing temperaments. To these cells also she frequently sent her nuns, to give them an opportunity for cultivating closer communion with God, for their spiritual edification.

For the last six years of her life the Abbess suffered greatly from severe indisposition, which frequently laid her prostrate for weeks together, "Yet during all this time she never failed to return thanks to her Maker, or publicly and privately to instruct the flock committed to her charge, admonishing them to serve God in health, and thank Him for adversity or bodily infirmity."

Among the nuns under her care was one from Ireland named Bega, who was most exemplary in her attention to the duties of her religious calling, eminently endowed with spiritual grace, and conspicuous for her humility, self-abnegation, and all the virtues which adorn a Christian life; which qualities endeared her to the venerable Abbess, and they came to regard each other as mother and daughter rather than as Lady Superior and ordinary nun of a religious establishment.

During the long illness of the Abbess, Bega was her constant attendant and nurse, and accompanied her in her occasional retreats at Hackness. One afternoon they were seated together in the Abbess's private room, when the invalid seemed to be rallying in health and entering upon one of her alternate periods of comparative convalescence. Bega had been reading to her a new paraphrase of a portion of the Bible, the composition of CÆdmon, the cow-boy poet of Streoneshalh. She laid down the manuscript at the conclusion, expressing a hope that the Abbess had not been wearied by her imperfect reading, and that in spite of defective knowledge of the characters on the part of the reader, she had been enabled to follow the sense and appreciate the beauty of the rendering.

"Nothing from the pen of CÆdmon," said the Abbess, "ever wearies me; on the contrary, his compositions are so redolent of spiritual beauty that they seem to refresh my soul, and invigorate my body as well. Indeed, at this moment I feel so much better in health that if no relapse occurs in the interval, I propose on the morrow relieving our good Prioress from the duties which I have delegated upon her during my sickness."

"Happy am I," replied Bega at hearing this, "and I trust that God, if he sees fit, may preserve you for many years to come, in the superintendence and guidance of this holy house. But, mother dear, your restoration of bodily strength emboldens me to solicit a boon."

"What is it my dear child? Anything that I can grant shall be yours. I promise this without knowing what you wish, feeling assured that you will solicit nothing that is inconsistent either with your maidenly character or with your altar-made vows."

"I pray for nothing unbeseeming my character in such respects; but, holy mother, of late I fear I have experienced some spiritual declension, and that I have become more carnally minded than becomes one whose thoughts should be centred on Christ alone, and I pray you, mother dear, to permit me to retire into more entire seclusion from the world, that I may by abstinence, prayer, and close communion with God, be restored to a more wholesome frame of soul."

"Your boon is granted, my child, gladly; repair at once to Hackness, and may God shed his blessing upon your pious aspiration for a higher life of holiness."

The following day Bega was escorted to the cell, where the Abbess, with an almost Cistercian eye for sylvan beauty, had planted it, that in the midst of a natural Paradise it might bloom as a spiritual Eden, and there she at once commenced a season of wholesome asceticism and religious exercises.

A week passed away, and Bega, absorbed in her devotional exercises, had become emaciated by the rigour of her fasting without heeding it; and as is usual in such cases, her spirit had become more etherealised and more susceptible of supernatural influences. After vespers one evening she returned to her lonely sleeping apartment, a bare and scantily furnished room, and lay down on her bed, consisting of a thin layer of straw on a hard, wooden pallet, with nothing more than a coarse rug for her coverlet. She slept for a short space, then awoke and rose to repeat the nocturnes, kneeling on the rough flooring stones. She then lay down again and composed herself to sleep, and was in the half-conscious state between sleeping and waking when she was aroused by hearing a passing-bell boom forth, which sounded like that of Streoneshalh, which was miles beyond earshot, and was the more remarkable as the bell of Hackness was much smaller and altogether different in tone. She listened with soul-thrilling awe, and thought, "Can it be that the holy mother is departing at this moment to her heavenly rest, and that the sound of the passing-bell is miraculously brought to mine ears?" Scarcely had the thought flashed across her mind, when, looking upward, the vaulted roof seemed to be melting away, like a mist under the influence of the morning sun. In a very short space of time it disappeared altogether, and there was presented to the eye of the gazer the expanse of sky studded with stars, sparkling like clusters of diamonds. Presently the knell of the passing-bell ceased. And there broke upon her ear the sound of distant vocal music. As it came nearer, it seemed different from any music she had ever heard; unearthly; heavenly; so ravishingly sweet was the melody. The words she was unable to comprehend, but there was something about them which seemed to declare them of celestial origin. With raptured ears she listened as the choir, which appeared to be floating in the air, came on and on until it sounded as if immediately overhead. All this while, too, a constantly increasing effulgence of supernatural light was diffusing itself over the firmament, and when the music came into close proximity to the cell, there burst upon her sight a vision, the glory of which she could have hitherto formed no conception of. It was that of a convoy of angels, fairer and more lovely in form and feature than anything ever conceived by artist or poet, or than ever trod the earth. It was they who were chanting the divine melody as they floated along overhead with an upward tendency; and in their midst was the beautified soul of the sainted mother of Streoneshalh, which they were escorting to the everlasting realms of purity and peace; of eternal rest, and an endless duration of unalloyed happiness. The rapt eyes of Bega were not allowed to rest long on this celestial vision; the group ascended higher and higher; the voices became fainter and fainter, until they were altogether lost; and Bega overcome with emotion, fell into an ecstatic trance, and when she awoke from it there was nothing to be seen but the glimmer of the moonshine on the walls and roof of her cell.

The next day a messenger arrived announcing the death of the Abbess, which he stated occurred immediately after nocturnes on the preceding night.

Bega remained a little while at Streoneshalh, and then went into Cumberland, and provided a religious house, called after her, St. Bees, where she spent the remainder of a most holy life.