the Church of Rome. Christianity was there before; and its lamp shone, though with faint and fitful gleams, by many a humble hearth, and in many a rustic church, far away among the mountains of Wales.

Ethelbert, an desking* of Kent, married Bertha, daughter of the Frankish King of Paris, who was a professed Christian. Within a church at Canterbury, the chaplain of this lady, Bishop Liudhard, who had come with her from Gaul, held a regular Christian service, to which curiosity, and probably deeper motives, attracted many of the Kentish people. Ethelbert went on worshipping Thor and Odin for fully twenty years after his marriage; but he must in the meantime have grown familiar with some of the doctrines preached in that little chapel of St. Martin. The ground was therefore somewhat broken in preparation for the operations of Augustine and his monks.

A letter from Ethelbert to Pope Gregory the Great, requesting a mission to be sent to Britain, was the first move in this important transaction. The gentle words of Bertha, dropping continually on the Aesking's ear, had wrought out this result; and the Frankish chaplain was in all likelihood the scribe on the occasion. Gladly Gregory responded to the call, for his mind had been long ago attracted by the distant isle. He had once seen some beautiful English slaves on view in the Roman market, where their blue eyes, yellow hair, and pinky-white complexion contrasted strongly with the dark locks and swarthy cheeks of southern captives; and he had fallen into an ecstasy of humour at the thought of converting their countrymen. "Not Angles," he cried, "but angels." "From Deira? Then they shall be de ira eruti" (snatched from wrath). "Name of their king Ælla! That is Alleluiah." Some such youths he had collected with the design of training them for a mission to England, but the project failed. The arrival of Ethelbert's letter

* Aesking, meaning "son of the ash-tree," was derived from the surname of Eric, King of Kent, who was called Aesc, or "the ash-tree." Eric was Hengist's son.

revived it, and filled his heart with joy. Selecting for the work Augustine, the prior of the convent on the Calian Hill, to which he had himself belonged, he despatched that priest with forty monks to the distant shores of Kent.

These men, frightened by the accounts they received in Gaul of the islanders, lingered there, and sent back their leader to beg for a recall. But Gregory the Great had willed it; they must go on. Accompanied, therefore, by the Frankish bishops, whose language was not unlike the Saxon, they crossed the sea, and wondered to find themselves in a fair and smiling land. A civil message from Ethelbert reässured them 597 yet more. Bidding them welcome, and thanking them for having come so far to do him good, he said that they might remain as long as they pleased, and make as many converts as they could. He then agreed to give the foreign monks an audience in the open air, in sight of the assembled men of Kent.

A splendid and imposing pageant that meeting must have been. Somewhere in the island of Thanet a double throne was set beneath the sky; and when the king and the queen had ascended their royal chairs, sounds of sacred music came floating on the breeze. The rough Jutes stood around in rapt delight and silent awe. Nearer came the song, and the words of Latin psalms and litanies, chanted by the rich deep voices of the monks, grew distinct as the solemn march advanced. With a picture of the Saviour carried aloft, and a silver crucifix flashing in every hand, the procession reached the foot of the throne. Augustine spoke through his Frankish friends, declaring the blessings and hopes that flowed from the faith he professed. The answer of the king was cautious; but the delighted face of Queen Bertha sufficiently rewarded the missionaries for their toils and fears. Before long, Augustine sent a letter to Gregory announcing the baptism of the Kentish king, and the conversion of ten thousand Jutes.

There was no violence in the change. The pagan habits of

the people were consulted in the innovations of the Romish priests. Holy water sprinkled on a temple turned it into a church. The oxen formerly offered to Thor and Odin were now roasted and eaten, and were washed down with draughts of ale and mead. The men of Kent soon became quite reconciled to a change of creed that made no difference in their usual supplies of solid beef and strong drink.

Augustine, appointed Archbishop of Canterbury, entered with zeal upon the duties of his see. His grand object was to bend every man in Britain beneath Roman sway. The simple priesthood of the Cymri, stung by the arrogance of this foreign monk, refused obedience to the Pope, even when Augustine pretended in their presence to restore sight to a blind man, in proof of his divine authority. A second meeting had the same result. They could neither be captured by his crafty proposals nor daunted by his threats, so they broke off the conference, and went back to their mountains.

We must not leave Ethelbert without a word or two regarding the "Dooms" or laws which he laid down, with the help of the wise men around his throne, and which must be regarded as the basis of all legislation in England. These dooms, eighty-nine in number, were nearly all penal. Money was the universal salve for any wrong, from a practical joke played on the king at a drinking party up to the crimes of robbery and murder.

CHAPTER III.

EDWIN PENDA-OFFA.

Edwin in exile-His glorious reign-Paulinus-The hurled spear-Hatfield Chase-Penda the pagan-East Anglia-Battle of the Winwid-Offa's cruelty and crime.

A'

BOUT the time of Augustine's death, which is said to have happened in 604, Edwin, a young prince of Deira, driven from his throne by a usurping soldier, was wandering homeless through Britain. After a long residence at the Mercian court he crossed the stretch of fen and mere that formed the natural bulwark of East Anglia, to seek a welcome in the palace of King Redwald. When the usurper Ethelfrid heard that the exile had taken refuge there, he began to play upon Redwald's avarice by offering a great sum of gold for the life of Edwin. The East Anglian monarch wavered. Tempted by a still higher price, and frightened by fierce threats of war if he refused to slay his guest, he had almost consented to the dark crime, when his wife stepped in and saved him from the shame. Meanwhile Edwin, warned just as he was going to bed that the strangers in the hall were bidding for his life, went out and sat down on a stone before the door, ready at the first hint of peril to flee into the darkness. As he sat he fell asleep and dreamed-A man of huge size and kingly looks came and asked what he would give the person who should save him and restore him to his throne. Edwin replied that he would give all he had to such a benefactor. When the prince had also

agreed to obey any one who should teach him so to regulate his conduct as to insure his happiness both here and hereafter, the spectre, placing a shadowy hand upon his head, bade him mark that sign, and yield obedience to him who afterwards might use it. The broken conference of that anxious night led to a war. On the banks of the Idel* the usurper Ethelfrid was slain; and the crown of Deira was replaced on Edwin's head (617 A.D.).

Early disaster had moulded the Northumbrian prince for greatness. His armies swept the land north of the Humber, reducing even the fierce denizens of the northern mountains. His ships chained the wild Orkneys, the far isles of Man and Anglesea, to his mainland realm. Mercia and the Britons of the west trembled in the shadow of his throne.

The second wife of this great Bretwalda † was Ethelberga of Kent, daughter of that good Queen Bertha who had turned her husband from the worship of Saxon gods. Such a marriage bore its natural fruit. The story of the daughter's settlement in Northumbria is that of her Frankish mother in Kent told over again with a change of names. The husband consented that his bride should worship according to her own creed, and the wife brought to her new home a chaplain, by whose pious counsels she might be guided in her new sphere of life. Paulinus, who accompanied Ethelberga to the Northumbrian court, soon won the respect of the stern soldier Edwin by sheer force of intellect. One day there came from Wessex a mock-ambassador, who, when admitted to the royal presence, rushed forward with drawn sword upon the monarch, whom his treacherous chieftain had sent him to slay. A faithful earl, shielding the king with his breast, received the thrust, which passed right through his body, but yet inflicted a deep wound on the king. In a moment every sword was out, and the assassin fell, hacked to death. In

* The Idel, or Idle, is an affluent of the Trent, flowing eastward chiefly through Nottinghamshire.

This word, wrongly supposed to mean "the wielder or ruler of Britain," seems to have been a purely Northumbrian title, meaning, probably, "powerful king."