ceive "the
apostolical benediction." Ethelred built a house for the abbot, which
is now the palace of the bishop, but, excepting for its antiquity, it
possesses no features of interest.

After a reign of thirty years, Ethelred exchanged the insignia of
royalty for the rough garments of a monk, and became abbot of Bardney,
in Lincolnshire, where he died, in the year, 716.

From the death of Cuthbaldus to the accession of Beonna in 775, there
is a blank in the history of the monastery. During his rule one or two
important concessions were made to the monks by King Offa.

The name of the next abbot was Celredus, but of him nothing particular
is recorded. He was succeeded by Hedda, in 833, during whose abbacy the
first destruction of the monastery by the Danes occurred, which founded
an important era in the history of this institution. A band of savage
Danes, headed by Earl Hubba, invaded the territory of the Mercians, and
after committing numerous depredations in the country, they plundered
the monastery of Croyland, and proceeded to attack _Medeshamstede_.
The monks of this abbey had, however, gained intelligence of their
intentions, and having closed the gates, resolved to act on the
defensive. Hubba and his desperadoes soon surrounded them, and demanded
that the gates should be opened; and when he was told that he should
not enter, he commenced to batter the walls. In the course of the
attack, one of the monks hurled a great stone from the top of the
building upon the besiegers, and Tulba, the brother of Hubba, was
killed by it. This so incensed the earl, that he vowed to put every
monk to death by his own hand; and having forced the gates, proceeded
to put his horrible threat into execution,--robbed the monastery of
everything that was valuable, and then set it on fire. It burned
fifteen days. All the portable valuables were then packed on waggons
and taken away. The plunder, however, is said to have been lost,
"either in the Nen or in the neighbouring marshes."[2] This was in 870.

In a short time a few monks who escaped at Croyland re-assembled at
their abbey there, and after electing Godric their abbot, proceeded to
_Medeshamstede_, and buried the monks of that monastery who had been
murdered by the Danish invaders in one vast tomb. Godric likewise had
their effigies cut out in stone (a representation of which is here
shown, the original being in the Lady Chapel),[3] and, to honour their
memory, he went every ye