He was quickly made guest-master at the new monastery at Ripon, soon after 655, but had to return with Eata to Melrose when Wilfrid was given the monastery instead. About 662 he was made prior at Melrose, and around 665 went as prior to Lindisfarne. In 684 he was made Bishop of Lindisfarne, but by late 686 he resigned and returned to his hermitage as he felt he was about to die, although he was probably still only in his early 50s. After a few weeks of illness he died on the island on 20 March 687, and his body was carried back to Lindisfarne and buried there the same day. Lindisfarne Although first documented in 1104, the book is presumed to have been buried with Cuthbert at Lindisfarne, and to have stayed with the body during the wanderings forced by the Viking invasions two centuries later. Bede's Life recounts that Cuthbert was initially buried in a stone sarcophagus to the right of the altar in the church at Lindisfarne; he had wanted to be buried at the hermitage on Inner Farne Island where he died, but before his death was persuaded to allow his burial at the main monastery. His burial was first disturbed eleven years after his death, when his remains were moved to behind the altar to reflect his recognition, in the days before a formal process of canonisation, as a saint. The sarcophagus was opened and his body was said to have been found perfectly preserved or incorrupt. This apparent miracle led to the steady growth of Cuthbert's posthumous cult, to the point where he became the most popular saint of Northern England. Numerous miracles were attributed to his intercession and to intercessory prayer near his remains. In particular, Alfred the Great, King of Wessex, was inspired and encouraged in his struggle against the Danes by a vision or dream he had of Cuthbert. Thereafter, the royal house of Wessex, who became the kings of England, made a point of devotion to Cuthbert, which also had a useful political message, as they came from opposite ends of the united English kingdom. Cuthbert was "a figure of reconciliation and a rallying point for the reformed identity of Northumbria and England" after the absorption of the Danish populations into Anglo-Saxon society, according to Michelle Brown. The 8th-century historian Bede wrote both a verse and a prose life of