6D5 



WILFRED, SAINT. 



WILKES, JOHN. 



696 



Vikramaditya and Salivahana,' ix., 117; 11, 'On the Ancient Geogra- 

 phy of India,' xiv. (1822). 



WILFRED, SAINT, a Saxon bishop, one of the principal instru- 

 ments by which the papal authority was extended to Britain. He 

 was descended of a noble family of Bernicia, where he is said to 

 have been born in the year 634. He was taught the use of arms and 

 other accomplishments of a Saxon noble. At the age of thirteen he 

 became subject to the authority of an unkind step-mother, from which 

 he was relieved by being received into Queen Eanfleda's household. 

 While only in his fourteenth year he was directed by the queen to be 

 an attendant on an aged Saxon noble named Cudda, who had resolved 

 to spend the remainder of his days as patron of a small monastery in 

 Lindisfarne. It is said that Wilfred here devoted himself to theological 

 reading, in the course of which he discovered the difference between 

 the practice of the Scottish Church and that of the rest of the 

 Christian world as to the observance of Easter, and conceived the 

 design of visiting Rome, that he might obtain a satisfactory solution of 

 the difficulty. In C53, when nineteen years old, he proceeded on his 

 journey, accompanied by Benedict Biscop, who afterwards enjoyed a 

 celebrity much resembling his own, anti with recommendations from 

 the courts of Bernicia and Kent. At Rome, where he remained for 

 several months, he received special instruction on the subject as to 

 which he had undertaken the journey, and on theological matters of 

 more serious importance, from Archdeacon Boniface, by whom he was 

 brought under the notice of the pope. In passing through Lyon he 

 had secured the friendship of a powerful French prelate, Archbishop 

 Delfinus, with whom he lived for three years on his return. Upon 

 the fall of the Merovingian dynasty, Delfinus was put to death by 

 Elvenius, mayor of the palace, and Wilfred narrowly escaped from 

 sharing in his fate. Returning from the centre of ecclesiastical learn- 

 ing and authority, Wilfred naturally obtained a high influence among 

 the Saxon Christians, lay and ecclesiastical. From Alchfrid, king of 

 Northumbria, he obtained a grant of land and a monastery at Ripon, 

 within which, in 664, he was ordained a priest by Agilbercb, bishop of 

 the West Saxons. The ceremony was performed in time to give him 

 a voice in the celebrated conference of Streaneshalch, or Whitby, 

 where the Easter question and that of the tonsure were solemnly dis- 

 cussed. The Scoto-Irish clergy having so far diverged from the 

 commonly received interpretation of the decision of the Council of 

 Nice, regarding the time of Easter, as to solemnise it on the day of the 

 full moon when that day fell upon a Sunday, instead of waiting till 

 the ensuing Monday, and having also adopted a peculiar practice in the 

 tonsure, or shaving of the head, the King of Northumbria, whose 

 dominions were under the spiritual jurisdiction of the Scottish 

 bishops of Lindisfarue, was desirous that his clergy should conform to 

 the practice of the rest of Christendom, or justify their divergence by 

 authority. The conference was held at the monastery of Whitby, at 

 the couomencement of the year 664. His own practice was vindicated 

 by Colman, bishop of Lindisfarne, on the example of St. Columba ; 

 but Wilfred adduced the higher authority of St. Peter, and the king 

 decided in his favour. The juiisdiction of the Scottish bishops within 

 Northumbria arose from the circumstance of the see of York having 

 been left vacant, The king determined to fill the see, and his choice 

 naturally fell on Wilfred. He saw difficulties in the way of being 

 canonically consecrated in Britain, and proceeding to France, the 

 ceremony was performed with much pomp by the same Agilberct who 

 had ordained him priest, and who had become bishop of Paris. The 

 ship in which he returned was driven by a storm on the coast of 

 Sussex, where he and his followers narrowly escaped being plundered 

 and enslaved by the barbarous and unconverted inhabitants. In the 

 meantime the influence of the Scoto-Irish and British party in the 

 Church had got one of their own number, Ceadda, placed in the chair 

 of York. Three years elapsed before Wilfred could get his claim 

 enforced; but the arrival of the learned Theodore from Home, and his 

 elevation to the archiepiscopal see of Canterbury, decided the contest 

 in favour of the Roman party in 669. Wilfred, in possession of a 

 bishopric, soon showed the ambition and priestly pride of his character 

 by eularging the power of the Church and surrounding his own person 

 with pomp and state. He carried on a bold contest for superiority on 

 the side of the ecclesiastical against the kingly power, both of them 

 but imperfectly developed, and depending for their extent very much 

 on the personal character of the individuals who might wield them. 

 He appears not to have been luxurious or sensual in his own personal 

 habits j but he lived magnificently, kept a great table, and was sur- 

 rounded by a body of attendants, which vied in number and splendour 

 with the^ing's court. He was the first patron of ecclesiastical archi- 

 tecture in England. Rome and the other continental cities he had 

 visited naturally filled his mind with magnificent conceptions, which 

 he embodied in the embellishments of the cathedral church of York ; 

 covering the roof with lead, and filling the windows with glass. He 

 built a church at Ripon of hewn stone, of which the great size and the 

 columns and porticoes are the subject of admiration by the ecclesias- 

 tical annalists ; and another at Hexham, which was called the finest 

 ecclesiastical edifice on the western side of the Alps. He had a great 

 influence over Etheldrytha, the queen, whom he persuaded to retire 

 to a nunnery. Either by his interference or his ambition he roused 

 the anger of the victorious Ecgfrid, now king of Northumbria, who 

 resolved to break his power by dividing his bishopric into three, a 



project in which Theodore, the archbishop, concurred. Refusing his 

 assent, Wilfred was deposed. He proceeded to Rome, to make a per- 

 sonal appeal to the court; and on his way, being driven on tho 

 coast of Friesland, remained there for some time, converting the 

 natives to Christianity. The pope naturally decided in his favour ; 

 but the king, instead of seconding the papal decree, committed Wilfred 

 to prison, whence he escaped to the wastes of Sussex, where he devoted 

 the energies of his active mind to the conversion and civilisation of the 

 heathen inhabitants. Caedwalla, who had been driven from his king- 

 dom of Wessex, was aided in the recovery of it by Wilfred, and after- 

 wards extended his authority over Sussex. Wilfred, powerfully 

 befriended and supported by his eminent services to Christianity, was 

 recalled to his see, and had hopes held out to him of succeeding 

 Theodore in the primacy. The bishops however were still opposed 

 to Wilfred as the head of the Roman party ; and after the death of 

 Theodore the primacy remained vacant for two years, and was then 

 filled by Berctwald. This archbishop, soon after his accession, pre- 

 sided at a council held in 692, at which the old question of the division 

 of the see of York was revived. Wilfred on this occasion took high 

 ground, charging his opponents with schism and apostacy in resisting 

 the head of the Church ; and he was deposed and excommunicated. 

 Wilfred again proceeded to Rome, where he had in his favour his zeal 

 in support of the papal authority, and the countenance of his old 

 patron, Boniface. He remained some years at Rome, and did not 

 reach England on his return till 705. The authority he brought with 

 him overawed his opponents ; but age and decrepitude seem to have 

 quenched his ambition, and he neither sought the primacy nor a 

 restoration to his see of York. He died at his monastery at Oundle in 

 709, and his body was conveyed to Ripon, where it was intern d. 



WILKES, JOHN, was born at Clerkenwell, October 17th, 1727. 

 His father, a distiller in that place, gave him a liberal education ; 

 for after he had spent several years at school in Hertford and in 

 Buckinghamshire, he was sent, with a private tutor, to the univer- 

 sity of Leyden. Wilkes did not neglect the opportunities afforded 

 him, but evinced through life considerable scholarship and taste for 

 classical literature and polite learning. He translated parts of Ana- 

 creon, and printed handsome editions of the Characters of Theo- 

 phrastus and of the poems of Catullus. His manners were elegant, 

 and his conversation pleasing and witty. At an early age his accom- 

 plishments secured him many friends of rank and influence, amongst 

 whom may be mentioned Lord Temple, and Mr. Pitt, afterwards 

 Lord Chatham. His devotion to literature and the society of eminent 

 men did not secure his youth from vicious excesses. He was 

 notorious for his dissipation and extravagance, and at an early age 

 was embarrassed in fortune and tainted in character. In 1749 ho 

 married Miss Mead, of a Buckinghamshire family, but that lady was 

 ten years older than himself, and their dispositions were by no means 

 suitable. They continued to live together for some time, and a 

 daughter was born of their marriage ; but at length his excesses and 

 mutual disagreement led to a separation. This was followed by a 

 lawsuit concerning his wife's annuity, in which his character was 

 exposed to much obloquy. His vices however were not destined to 

 ruin him. Neither his character nor his talents would have raised 

 him to political eminence ; but the impolitic and illegal measures of 

 his opponents made him the idol of the people. 



The first appearance of Wilkes in public was in April 1754, when 

 he addressed the electors of Berwick-upon-Tweed with a view of 

 becoming their representative in parliament. He did not however 

 succeed in obtaining a seat in the House of Commons until 1757, when 

 he was returned for the borough of Aylesbury, for which place he was 

 re-elected in the next parliament, in 1761. In March, 17(52, he pub- 

 lished a very successful pamphlet, being ' Observations on the Papers 

 relative to the Rupture with Spain, laid before both Houses of Par- 

 liament on Friday, January 29, 1762.' It did not appear with his 

 name, and Wilkes slily shifted the authorship upon others. In June 

 of the same year he commenced the publication of his celebrated 

 newspaper, the ' North Briton,' which he undertook in opposition to 

 ' The Briton,' a paper written in defence of Lord Bute's administra- 

 tion. The unpopularity of Lord Bute was already very great, but 

 the ' North Briton ' increased it to an alarming extent, by stirring 

 appeals to the passions and to national prejudices. Tho minister 

 quailed before the clamour with which he was universally assailed, 

 and withdrew from public affairs ; but his known influence with the 

 king, and the political complexion of the ministers under Mr. George 

 Grenville, his successor, led to the belief that he still enjoyed a secret 

 control over the national councils. Wilkes, with the assistance, it 

 is said, of Charles Churchill and Lord Temple, continued his attacks 

 upon the ministry with unabated activity. The government were 

 watching an opportunity of punishing their mischievous opponent, 

 and at length struck a blow which recoiled upon themselves. In 

 No. 45 of his paper he charged the king with having uttered a false- 

 hood in his speech from the throne ; upon which a general warrant 

 was issued by Lord Halifax, one of the principal secretaries of state, 

 commanding the apprehension of the authors, printers, and publishers 

 of the ' North Briton,' as a seditious aud treasonable paper. By 

 virtue of this warrant the house of Wilkes was entered by three king's 

 messengers, his papers were searched, and he himself was seized and 

 committed to the Tower. In a few days he was brought, by habeas 



