After Cadwalla became king of the Gewissae, he captured the Isle of Wight, which was entirely devoted to idolatry and strove to exterminate all the natives and replace them by settlers from his own province. Although not yet baptized, he is said to have bound himself by an oath to dedicate a quarter of the land and spoils to the Lord if he conquered the island; and he fulfilled this oath by offering it for God’s use to Bishop Wilfrid, who chanced at this time to have left his own people in order to visit the island. By English reckoning, the island has an area of twelve hundred hides, so that the bishop was given three hundred hides of land. This share he entrusted to Bernwini, one of his clerks who was his own sister’s son, and he appointed a priest named Hiddila to preach and administer Baptism to all who sought salvation.
It would not be right to omit mention of two young princes, brothers of Arwald, king of the island, who were especially favoured by God’s grace, and became the first natives of the island to believe and be saved. On the approach of the invaders, these princes had escaped from the island and crossed to the adjoining province of the Jutes. Here they were guided to a place called At-the-Stone,1 where they hoped to remain hidden from the victorious king; and they were betrayed and ordered to be put to death. This was reported to the priest Cynibert, Abbot of a not far distant monastery at a place called Hreutford, that is, the Ford of Reeds;2 so he sought out the king, who was living in seclusion in the district while he recovered from wounds received while fighting in the Isle of Wight, and begged him that, if it was necessary for these lads to die, he might first be allowed to instruct them in the mysteries of the Christian Faith. The king consented to this, and when Cynibert had taught them the word of truth, he baptized them in the fount of salvation, and assured their entry into the kingdom of heaven. So when the executioner arrived, they met bodily death gladly, in the firm faith that through it their souls would pass to eternal life. So last of all the provinces of Britain, the Isle of Wight accepted the Faith of Christ; but owing to its subjection to an alien rule, it had no bishop or see of its own until the time of Daniel, who is now Bishop of the West Saxons.
The Isle of Wight lies opposite the boundary between the South Saxons and the Gewissae, and is separated from it by three miles of sea, known as the Solent. In this strait, two ocean tides that flow round Britain from the boundless northern seas meet in daily opposition off the mouth of the River Homelea.3 This enters the sea after flowing through the lands of the Jutes who lived in the Gewissae country; and when the turbulence ceases, they flow back into the ocean whence they spring.