This effort was the last. He lost the power of speech, received the last sacraments in silence, and died raising his eyes and arms to heaven, at the hour when it was usual to sing matins, in the night of the 20th of March, 687. One of his attendants immediately mounted to the summit of the rock, where the lighthouse is now placed, and gave to the monks of Lindisfarne, by waving a lighted torch, the signal agreed upon to announce the death of the greatest saint who has given glory to that famous isle. He was but fifty, and had worn the monastic habit for thirty-five years.

Among many friends, he had one who was at once his oldest and most beloved, a priest called Herbert, who lived as an anchorite in an island of Lake Derwentwater. Every year Herbert came from his peaceful lake to visit his friend in the other island, beaten and undermined continually by the great waves of the Northern Sea; and upon that wild rock, to the accompaniment of winds and waves, they passed several days together, in a tender solitude and intimacy, talking of the life to come. When Cuthbert, then a bishop, came for the last time to Carlisle, Herbert seized the opportunity, and hastened to refresh himself at that fountain of eternal benefits which flowed for him from the holy and tender heart of his friend. "My brother," the bishop said to him, "thou must ask me now all that thou wantest to know, for we shall never meet again in this world." At these words Herbert fell at his feet in tears. "I conjure thee," he cried, "do not leave me on this earth behind thee; remember my faithful friendship, and pray God that, after having served Him together in this world, we may pass into His glory together." Cuthbert threw himself on his knees at his friend's side, and after praying for some minutes, said to him, "Rise, my brother, and weep no more; God has granted to us that which we have both asked from Him." And, in fact, though they never saw each other again here below, they died on the same day and at the same hour; the one in his isle bathed by the peaceful waters of a solitary lake, the other upon his granite rock, fringed by the ocean foam; and their souls, says Bede, reunited by that blessed death, were carried together by the angels into the eternal kingdom. This coincidence deeply touched the Christians of Northumbria, and was long engraven in their memory. Seven centuries later, in 1374, the bishop of Carlisle appointed that a mass should be said on the anniversary of the two saints, in the island where the Cumbrian anchorite died, and granted an indulgence of forty days to all who crossed the water to pray there in honour of the two friends.

After many translations, the body of S. Cuthbert found repose in Durham cathedral, where it rested in a magnificent shrine till the reign of Henry VIII., when the royal commissioners visited the cathedral with the purpose of demolishing all shrines. The following is a condensed account of this horrible profanation, given by a writer of the period, or shortly after[67]:—

"The sacred shrine of holy S. Cuthbert was defaced at the visitation held at Durham, by Dr. Lee, Dr. Henly, and Mr. Blithman. They found many valuable jewels. After the spoil of his ornaments, they approached near to his body, expecting nothing but dust and ashes; but perceiving the chest he lay in strongly bound with iron, the goldsmith, with a smith's great forge hammer, broke it open, when they found him lying whole, uncorrupt, with his face bare, and his beard as of a fortnight's growth, and all the vestments about him, as he was accustomed to say mass. When the goldsmith perceived he had broken one of his legs in breaking open the chest, he was sore troubled at it, and cried, 'Alas! I have broken one of his legs'; which Dr. Henly hearing, called to him, and bade him cast down his bones. The other answered, he could not get them asunder, for the sinews and skin held them so that they would not separate. Then Dr. Lee stept up to see if it were so, and turning about, spake in Latin to Dr. Henly that he was entire, though Dr. Henly, not believing his words, called again to have his bones cast down. Dr. Lee answered, 'If you will not believe me, come up yourself and see him.' Then Dr. Henly stept up to him, and handled him, and found he lay whole; then he commanded them to take him down, and so it happened, that not only his body was whole and uncorrupted, but the vestments wherein his body lay, and wherein he was accustomed to say mass, were fresh, safe, and not consumed. Whereupon the visitors commanded him to be carried into the revestry, till the king's pleasure concerning him was further known; and upon the receipt thereof, the prior and monks buried him in the ground under the place where his shrine was exalted."

Harpsfield, who flourished at the time, and who was a most faithful and zealous Catholic, gives a similar account; he, however, does not say that the leg bone was broken, but that the flesh was wounded; and that the body was entire except that "the prominent part of the nose, I know not why, was wanting." And he adds that, "a grave was made in the ground, in that very spot previously occupied by his precious shrine, and there the body was deposited. And not only his body, but even the vestments in which it was clothed, were perfectly entire, and free from all taint and decay. There was upon his finger a ring of gold, ornamented with a sapphire, which I myself once saw and handled and kissed. There were present, among others, when this sacred body was exposed to daylight, Doctor Whithead, the president of the monastery, Dr. Sparke, Dr. Tod, and William Wilam, the keeper of the sacred shrine. And thus it is abundantly manifest, that the body of S. Cuthbert remained inviolate and uncontaminated eight hundred and forty years."

In May, 1827, the place which these and other authorities had indicated as that where the body of S. Cuthbert was buried, was very carefully examined, and the coffin and a body were exhumed. The Anglo-Saxon sculpture, and everything about and within this coffin, left no doubt that what was discovered was the ancient coffin, the vestments, and relics which had accompanied the body of S. Cuthbert. But the body by no means agreed with the minute accounts of S. Cuthbert. There was evidence that it had not been uncorrupt when buried, and there was no trace of any injury done to the leg-bone. Hence it is difficult not to conclude that the garments and shrine were those of Cuthbert, but that the body was not his, but was one which had been substituted for it. And when we remember that the incorrupt body was left in the vestry under the charge of the prior and monks till the king's pleasure could be ascertained as to what was to be done with it, there can be little doubt that they who so highly valued this sacred treasure substituted for it another body, which they laid in the pontifical vestments of Cuthbert, which was buried as his in his coffin. Where the prior and monks concealed the holy relics, if this conjecture prove true, it is impossible to state. That there is ground for this conjecture may be concluded from the existence of a tradition to this effect, and it is said that the true place of the interment of the saint is only known to three members of the Benedictine Order, who, as each one dies, choose a successor. Another line of tradition is said to descend through the Vicars Apostolic, now Roman Catholic bishops of the district. This is the belief to which reference is made in Marmion.

The supposed place of interment indicated by the secular tradition, (under the stairs of the bell-tower), has been carefully examined. No remains were found, and it is evident that the ground had never been disturbed since the construction of the tower.[68] There can be no question as to the genuineness of all the articles found in the tomb, for they exactly agree with accounts of the things contained in the shrine, described by pre-reformation writers; but the genuineness of the body is more than questionable. Mr. Raine, who was present at the investigation, and has written an account of it, "S. Cuthbert; with an Account of the State in which his Remains were found upon the Opening of his Tomb in Durham Cathedral, in the year 1827," Durham 1828, endeavours to establish their identity by repudiating as absurd the account of the contemporary writers who assert that the body was uncorrupt, and of the breaking of the leg-bone, though he accepts all their other statements.

S. WULFRAM, B. OF SENS.

(A.D. 741.)

[Gallican and Roman Martyrologies. Also those of Usuardus and Wyon. Authority:—A life written by a contemporary, Jonas, a monk of the same abbey of Fontenelle to which S. Wulfram retired, of this there are several editions, some much interpolated. Some of these additions are gross errors. According to the life which Surius publishes, Jonas dedicated it to his abbot Bainus. But Bainus died seven years after Wulfram had undertaken his mission. Possibly Bainus is an error of the copyist for Wando, who translated the body of S. Wulfram in 742. In the prologue, moreover, Owen, or Ovus, the lad whom S. Wulfram had resuscitated after he had been hung, is quoted as the authority for much of what the bishop did in Friesland, Owen being then priest in the abbey of Fontenelle. This indicates the date of the life as being about the time of the translation.]