One of the most able and energetic churchmen of the age, Wilfrid enjoyed a career which scaled the heights of influence, power and wealth to an extent that perhaps no one else achieved. Yet he was a controversial figure, provoking as much hostility as loyalty and his conflicts with kings and clerics caused him great trouble and reversals of fortune. Three Northumbrian kings could well have asked of Wilfrid what Henry II later asked of Thomas Beckett: who will rid me of this turbulent priest?

Wilfrid was born about AD 634 to a Northumbrian noble family and at the age of fourteen years he left home and a harsh step-mother to present himself at the court of King Oswiu where he won the favour of Queen Eanflæd. He gained experience of monastic life and education when, still a youth, he went to Lindisfarne as a companion to Cudda, one of the king's courtiers, in his retirement. He did not stay here long, but determined to travel to Rome. He was supported in this by Eanflæd who kitted him out and provided introductions to her family in Kent. There he waited until a suitable travelling companion emerged in the person of Benedict Biscop, the founder in later years of the Wearmouth-Jarrow monastery.

In 653, aged 18 or 19, he set out with Biscop: probably the first Northumbrians ever to make their way to Rome. At Lyons they parted company for, while Biscop pressed on to Rome, Wilfrid spent a year in the household of Archbishop Annemundus before continuing. In Rome, he secured the patronage of Archdeacon Boniface who took him on as a pupil and introduced him to the Pope. He then returned to Lyons and spent another three years with Annemundus, completing his education before turning back to England after he had narrowly escaped execution during the palace revolution in which his patron was killed. Before leaving Lyons, he had received the monk's tonsure and so he arrived back in England in about 659 educated in Canon Law and the complex techniques for calculating the ecclesiastical calendar, and with experience of both the monastic rule of St. Benedict and the bishoprics of Gaul which were powerful in civil and ecclesiastical realms. All of this was to have a great influence on his life.

Wilfrid now launched his career under the patronage of Alhfrith, Oswiu's son who was sub-king in Deira. Alhfrith installed Wilfrid in 660 as abbot of the monastery of Ripon which, until then, was staffed by monks of the Irish tradition which was predominant in the kingdom. These monks were expelled and Wilfrid re-founded the monastery under the Benedictine rule. Alhfrith's court became the focus for a party intent on introducing Roman ways into Northumbria in opposition to the Irish church of his father's court. This culminated in 664 in the conference, or synod, which Oswiu called at Whitby to consider the merits of the two traditions. In this debate, Wilfrid led the case for the pro-Roman party. He drew on his knowledge of the orthodox method for calculating the date of Easter and he argued the scriptural case for the authority of St. Peter as against St. Columba's Irish tradition.

Whitby should have been a high point in Wilfrid's career; for the Roman party won the day and Wilfrid was appointed bishop of Lindisfarne. Alhfrith then arranged for him to go to Gaul to be consecrated bishop by Agilbert, Archbishop of Paris, who had previously ordained him priest However, he returned to find Alhfrith deposed (or possibly killed) and Chad installed by Oswiu as bishop of Lindisfarne. Devoid of patronage and a power base, Wilfrid retreated to his monastery of Ripon.

His fortunes revived again in 669 and during the following decade he achieved the height of his influence. He won back the Northumbrian diocese which he now administered from York where he re-built the church which Paulinus had founded in 627. He embarked on a spectacular building programme at Ripon and gained large new endowments for it from King Ecgfrith who had by now succeeded his father Oswiu; and he received the extensive estate of Hexham as a gift from Queen Æthelthryth where he founded a new monastery. At both Ripon and Hexham he built basilican churches in stone, in the style he had seen in Gaul and Italy, but at this date unique in England; and he provided them with crypts to display the many relics of saints which he had collected. His diocese was enlarged thanks to successful military campaigns by the king.

In 678, in his mid-forties Wilfrid's suffered a sudden reversal in his fortunes. His diocese was subdivided in the reforms of church organisation of Theodore, Archbishop of Canterbury and the king drove him out of Northumbria. Wilfrid had begun to lose favour with King Ecgfrith for championing Queen Æthelthryth in her determination to preserve her virginity, despite her marriage, and to enter a monastery. He got her into the monastery of Coldingham with the help of Abbess Æbbe, sister of the late King Oswiu. Ecgfrith's second wife, Iurmenburh, became hostile to Wilfrid on account of the vast estates which he had acquired and the way he travelled about with a large armed retinue, like that of a king. In this respect, Wilfrid was modelling himself on the bishops of Merovingian Gaul: the behaviour was overweening to English sensitivities.

Bereft of influential patrons, and having alienated opinion by his life-style, Wilfrid showed the qualities of energy and resilience which characterised his life. He set out for Rome to appeal to the Pope in person against his treatment: he was, after all, well versed in Canon Law. On the way, he visited Frisia and initiated a mission of conversion and he turned down an offer of the bishopric of Strasbourg He returned from Rome with a decision in his favour but Ecgfrith had him imprisoned at Dunbar. Released from here through the intervention of Abbess Æbbe, Wilfrid travelled south. But the hostility of the Northumbrian court followed him, for he was hindered in Mercia by Queen Ostryth, a sister of Ecgfrith, and in Wessex where the queen was Iurminburh's sister. He moved on to Sussex, which was still a pagan kingdom, and a new missionary venture. Here he won the patronage of King Æthelwalh, gained yet more estates and founded a monastery at Selsey. He involved himself in dynastic politics when he befriended an exiled Wessex prince, Cædwalla, from whom he received a large estate on the Isle of Wight.

With a new king, Aldfrith, Ecgfrith's half-brother, in Northumbria, Wilfrid was restored to the (now smaller) diocese of York in 686 and he re-gained control of his Northumbrian monasteries of Ripon and Hexham. Theodore, aware of Wilfrid's abilities, had been lobbying both the king and his half-sister Abbess Ælfflæd on Wilfrid's behalf. But relations between Wilfrid and Aldfrith were uneasy and Wilfrid was the victim of a whispering campaign, though his biographer names no names here. After five years relations had broken down completely and with Theodore no longer on the scene (he had died in 690), Wilfrid in 691 again left Northumbria for Mercia where he took a bishopric in Leicester. There is little detail recorded of this episode but Wilfrid is known to have founded at least six monasteries in Mercia, possibly in the years between 691 and 703.

The nadir of Wilfrid's fortunes came in 703 when he was denounced at a Council of the church held at Austerfeld on account of all the monastic property which he held and his followers were excommunicated. In the seventieth year of his life, he set out for the second time to appeal to the Pope; and for the second time he returned vindicated of the charges laid against him. The Pope wrote to the kings of Northumbria and Mercia ordering that the matter be settled at a new council to be held by Berhtwald, Archbishop of Canterbury. Aldfrith refused to accept the Pope's directions but he died in 705 before the issue was resolved.

Aldfrith's death occasioned a crisis in the Northumbrian royal house as his son Osred was but a boy of eight years old. Wilfrid, even now, in his old age and with all he had worked for on the point of collapse, immersed himself in the dynastic politics, emerging as the protector and adoptive father of Osred whose party succeeded in securing the throne.

The Council met in 706 by the River Nidd (in North Yorkshire) and Ælfflæd spoke on Wilfrid's behalf. The outcome was something of a compromise whereby Wilfrid retained possession of his principal Northumbrian and Mercian monasteries and the bishopric of Hexham.

Wilfrid had suffered a stroke while returning from Rome and, though he recovered from this, he was now in the final years of his life. He died aged 75 in 709 at his monastery in Oundle. Before the end, he announced his will. And as he gave one quarter of his estate to the abbots of Hexham and Ripon so that they should have something in hand to secure the favour of kings and bishops, he might have been thinking wryly of the costs to his own career of his quarrels with kings.