opportunity come. Then, despoiled of his northern bishopric, for
Wilfrid was a turbulent Churchman, he came prepared, we must suppose,
for the reception usually meted out to the saints in those days. The
heathen Saxons, however, were now in a different mood, for "no rain had
fallen in that province for three years before his arrival, wherefore a
dreadful famine ensued which cruelly destroyed the people.... It is
reported that very often, forty or fifty men, being spent with want,
would go together to some precipice, or to the sea-shore, and there
hand in hand perish by the fall, or be swallowed-up by the waves."
(Ven. Bede.)

The efforts of the missionary saint met with success. The unprecedented
sufferings of the people had been ignored by their tribal deities and
the offer of a new faith was eagerly accepted. The King had been
converted, possibly in secret, before this. The baptism of the leading
chieftain was followed by the breaking of the terrible drought. The
fruits of the woods came to feed the bodies of those who had accepted
the food of the spirit, and "the King being made pious and gentle by
God, granted him (Wilfrid) his own town in which he lived, for a
bishop's see, with lands of 87 houses in Selesie afterwards added
thereto, to the holy new evangelist and baptist who opened to him and
all his people the way of everlasting life, and there he founded a
monastery for a resting-place for his assembled brothers, which even to
this day belongs to his servants." (Eddi's _Life of Bishop Wilfrid_.)

The monastery site was probably the same as that of the cathedral, now
beneath the waves, about a mile east of the present Selsey church.

[Illustration: FISHBOURNE MANOR.]