that came to pray are said to have been killed, and only fifty to have escaped by flight. Brocmail turning his back with his men, at the first approach of the enemy, left those whom he ought to have defended, unarmed and exposed to the swords of the enemies. Thus was fulfilled the prediction of the holy Bishop Augustine, though he himself had been long before taken up into the heavenly kingdom ;* that those perfidious men should feel the vengeance of temporal death also, because they had despised the offer of eternal salvation. CHAP. III. How St. Augustine made Mellitus and Justus bishops; and of his death. [A.D. 604.] In the year of our Lord 604, Augustine, archbishop of Britain, ordained two bishops, viz. Mellitus and Justus; Mellitus to preach to the province of the East-Saxons, who are divided from Kent by the river Thames, and border on the Eastern sea. Their metropolis is the city of London, which is situated on the bank of the aforesaid river, and is the mart of many nations resorting to it by sea and land. At that time, Sabert, nephew to Ethelbert by his sister Ricula, reigned over the nation, though he was under subjection to Ethelbert, who, as has been said above, had command over all the nations of the English as far as the river Humber. But when this province also received the word of truth, by members, and the calamity must have caused a great diminution in the number of the British clergy. Those who would throw the odium of this murder upon Augustine's curse, make this passage to have been added to Bede some years after his death, and it is certain the royal paraphraser has made no mention of his death. Mr. Whelock and Dr. Smith assert it to be in all the ancient Latin manuscripts they had seen. The time of this battle is placed by the Saxon Annals in 607. Bishop Godwin asserts his seeing an instrument signed by Augustine in 605, which Sir Henry Spelman proves spurious, no instruments being used till 700. But the learned Mr. Wharton proves, beyond dispute, St. Augustine's death to be in 604, which was long before this, if we follow the Saxon Annals, which place it in 607; and very long before, if we follow Archbishop Usher's and the Ulster Annals, which place it in 613; to this we may add Bede's authority, that Pope Gregory had obiits said over him in the church at Canterbury; which plainly shows his death to have been before that pope's. And though we find him in the next chapter consecrating two bishops, this is frequent with Bede to go back wards for the series of every distinct part of his history or to work through a branch of it at once. the preaching of Mellitus, King Ethelbert built the church of St. Paul, in the city of London, where he and his successors should have their episcopal see. As for Justus, Augus▾ tine ordained him bishop in Kent, at the city which the English nation named Rhofescestir,* from one that was formerly the chief man of it, called Rhof. It was almost twenty-four miles distant from the city of Canterbury to the westward, and contains a church dedicated to St. Andrew, the apostle. King Ethelbert, who built it, bestowed many gifts on the bishops of both those churches, as well as on that of Canterbury, adding lands and possessions for the use of those who were with the bishops. After this, the beloved of God, Father Augustine, died, and his body was deposited without, close by the church of the apostles, Peter and Paul, above spoken of, by reason that the same was not yet finished, nor consecrated, but as soon as it was dedicated,† the body was brought in, and decently buried in the north porch thereof; wherein also were interred the bodies of all the succeeding archbishops, except two only, Theodorus and Berthwald, whose bodies are within that church, because the aforesaid porch could contain no more. Almost in the midst of this church is an altar dedicated in honour of the blessed Pope Gregory, at which every Saturday their service is solemnly performed by the priest of that place. On the tomb of the said Augustine is written this epitaph : "Here rests the Lord Augustine, first archbishop of Canterbury, who, being formerly sent hither by the blessed Gregory, bishop of the city of Rome, and by God's assistance supported with miracles, 1 educed King Ethelbert and his na Now Rochester. A chapter of secular priests was first established here, which was endowed by Ethelbert with a portion of land called Priestfield, to the south of the city; he afterwards gave other parcels of land within and without the walls of the city for its support.-Dugdale's Monasticon, i. 153. Which was in A.D. 613. The body of St. Augustine was afterwards removed by Thomas Fyndon, the abbat, A.D. 1300, and placed near the high altar in a sumptuous monument with this inscription: Inclytus Anglorum Præsul, pius, et decus altum, Dugdale's Monast, i. 81. tion from the worship of idols to the faith of Christ, and having ended the days of his office in peace, died the 26th day of May, in the reign of the same king." CHAP. IV. Laurentius and his bishops admonish the Scots to observe the unity of the Holy Church, particularly in keeping of Easter; Mellitus goes to Rome. [A.D. 605.] LAURENTIUS succeeded Augustine in the bishopric, having been ordained thereto by the latter, in his lifetime, lest, upon his death, the state of the church, as yet unsettled, might begin to falter, if it should be destitute of a pastor, though but for one hour. Wherein he also followed the example of the first pastor of the church, that is, of the most blessed prince of the apostles, Peter, who, having founded the church of Christ at Rome, is said to have consecrated Clement his assistant in preaching the Gospel, and at the same time his successor. Laurentius, being advanced to the degree of an archbishop, laboured indefatigably, both by frequent exhortations and examples of piety, to raise to perfection the foundations of the church, which had been so nobly laid. In short, he not only took care of the new church formed among the English, but endeavoured also to employ his pastoral solicitude among the ancient inhabitants of Britain, as also the Scots, who inhabit the island of Ireland, which is next to Britain. For when he understood that the course of life and profession of the Scots in their aforesaid country, as well as of the Britons in Britain, was not truly ecclesiastical, especially that they did not celebrate the solemnity of Easter at the due time, but thought that the day of the resurrection of our Lord was, as has been said above, to be celebrated between the 14th and 20th of the moon; he wrote, jointly with his fellow bishops, an exhortatory epistle, entreating and conjuring them to observe unity of peace, and conformity with the church of Christ spread throughout the world. The beginning of which epistle s as follows: "To our most dear brothers, the lords bishops and abbats throughout all Scotland,* Laurentius, Mellitus, and Justus, * Ireland. See ante, page 5. servants of the servants of God. When the apostolic see, according to the universal custom which it has followed elsewhere, sent us to these western parts to preach to pagan nations, we came into this island, which is called Britain, without possessing any previous knowledge of its inhabitants. We held both the Britons and Scots in great esteem for sanctity, believing that they had proceeded according to the custom of the universal church; but coming acquainted with the errors of the Britons, we thought the Scots had been better; but we have been informed by Bishop Dagan, coming into this aforesaid island, and the Abbat Columbanus † in France, that the Scots in no way differ from the Britons in their behaviour; for Bishop Dagan coming to us, not only refused to eat with us, but even to take his repast in the same house where we were entertained." The same Laurentius and his fellow bishops wrote a letter to the priests of the Britons, suitable to his rank, by which he endeavoured to confirm them in Catholic unity; but what he gained by so doing the present times still declare. About this time, Mellitus, bishop of London, went to Rome, to confer with Pope Boniface about the necessary affairs of the English church. And the same most reverend pope, assembling a synod of the bishops of Italy, to prescribe orders for the life and peace of the monks, Mellitus also sat among them, in the eighth year of the reign of the Emperor Phocas, the thirteenth indiction, on the 27th of February, to the end that he also by his authority might confirm such things as should be regularly decreed, and at his return into Britain might carry the same to the churches of the English, to be prescribed and observed; together with letters which the same pope sent to the beloved of God, Archbishop Laurentius, and to all the clergy; as likewise to King Ethelbert and the English nation. This pope was Boniface, who came fourth after Pope Gregory, and who obtained of the Emperor Phocas that the temple called by the ancients Pantheon, as representing all the gods, should be given to the Church of Christ; wherein he, having purified it from contamina Dagan is said to have come from the monastery of Banchor, Ireland, and was bishop to the Scots. Bale says, he wrote a book on the British churches Combanus was the founder of monasteries in France and Italy. tion, dedicated a church to the holy mother of God, and to all Christ's martyrs, to the end that, the devils being ex cluded, the blessed company of the saints might have therein a perpetual memorial. CHAP. V. How, after the death of the kings Ethelbert and Sabert, their successors restored idolatry; for which reason, both Mellitus and Justus departed out of Britain. [A.D. 616.] In the year of our Lord's incarnation 616, which is the twenty-first year after Augustine and his companions were sent to preach to the English nation, Ethelbert, king of Kent, having most gloriously governed his temporal kingdom fiftysix years, entered into the eternal joys of the kingdom which is heavenly. He was the third of the English kings that had the sovereignty* of all the southern provinces that are divided from the northern by the river Humber, and the borders contiguous to the same; but the first of the kings that ascended to the heavenly kingdom. The first who had the like sovereignty was Elli, king of the South-Saxons; the second, Celin, king of the West-Saxons, who, in their own language, is called Ceaulin; the third, as has been said, was Ethelbert, king of Kent; the fourth was Redwald, king of the East-Angles, who, whilst Ethelbert lived, had been subservient to him. The fifth was Edwin, king of the nation of the Northumbrians, that is, of those who live on the north side of the river Humber, who, with great power, commanded all the nations, as well of the English as of the Britons who inhabit Britain, except only the people of Kent, and he reduced also under the dominion of the English, the Mevanian Islands† of the Britons, lying between Ireland and Britain; the sixth was Oswald, the most Christian king of the Northumbrians, who also had the same extent und his command; the seventh, Oswy, brother to the form, the same dominions for some time, and for the most part subdued and made tributary the nations of the Picts and Scots, which possess the northern parts of Britain: but of these hereafter. held King Ethelbert died on the 24th day of the month of * As Bretwalda, or paramount sovereign. + Anglesea and Man. |