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REDWALD, KING OF ANGLIA.

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that "by the help of King Ethelbert, Augustine called to a conference learned men of the Britons," and he must have passed through Wessex to reach the place of meeting. But the Chronicler tells us of Ceolwulf, of Wessex, who came to the throne in 597, that he constantly strove and fought against either "the Angle race, or against the Welsh, or against the Picts, or against the Scots." Over the eastern side of the island, however, at least as far north as the Humber, his supremacy was undoubted. His sister, Ricula by name, was married to the king of the East Saxons, whose dominions comprised Essex, Hertfordshire, and Middlesex, and with Middlesex, of course, London, with its strong walls, its wealth, its numerous population. This alliance had probably something to do with the overlordship which Ethelbert undoubtedly exercised over his neighbours on the east. Of his relationship with Sussex we know nothing; but this kingdom, small and isolated as it was, could hardly have maintained its independence. East Anglia, under its king, Redwald, of whom we shall hear more hereafter, paid him the same submission. We hear of Redwald as visiting Ethelbert's Court in 599, and ultimately through his persuasion, or, possibly, compulsion, receiving baptism. But his power spread beyond East Anglia as far as the Humber, "that great river," as Bede describes it, "by which the Northern are divided from the Southern Angles." How far in a westerly direction his power extended it is impossible to say. Mercia, the great kingdom of the Midlands, was not consolidated under a powerful king till after Ethelbert's death. The small states of which it was after

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ANGLO-SAXON POTTERY, FOUND IN NORFOLK, KENT, AND CAMBRIDGE. (From the original in the British Museum.)

EDWIN, THE FIFTH BRETWALDA.

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wards constituted probably owned his supremacy, and, for a time, that of the king who succeeded him in his position of overlord.

This position Ethelbert does not seem to have held up to the time of his death. This took place in the year 616; but by that time Redwald of East Anglia was Bretwalda. How power came to be thus transferred from one prince to another we cannot say, but we may safely guess that the new faith which Ethelbert had adopted, which he had pressed on Redwald, and which Redwald afterwards threw off, had something to do with it. Anyhow the last Anglian king appears as fourth on the list of Bretwaldas and holds the dignity till his death, an event of which we cannot fix the date, but which we may suppose not to have happened later than 620. Before his death, by a great victory over Ethelfrith, of Northumbria, he had established Edwin, the fifth Bretwalda, on the throne of that kingdom. Of this battle we shall hear more hereafter. But the politics of the English kingdoms are now becoming so closely connected with the struggles between Christianity and Paganism, that it is necessary to describe without any further delay how the faith which had been destroyed by the invaders, and which for a century could scarcely have had a single adherent in the eastern half of the island, again became supreme.

XII.

THE CONVERSION OF ENGLAND

THE England which was described in the last chapter was, without doubt, a pagan country. In a few spots here and there some scattered survivors of the conquered race may have cherished some recollection of their old faith; but nowhere was it openly professed, and in some places it was absolutely forgotten. The independent Britons of the West held aloof from the heathen invaders, whom they regarded, to use the language of one of their writers, as "hateful to God and man." The more zealous Christians of Ireland and Scotland, of whose missionary spirit St. Patrick and St. Aidan may be taken as examples, may have done something to touch the heathen nearest to their own borders. But the work of conversion had substantially to be done anew.

It was done by two sets of workers, one coming. from Rome, the other from the native churches.

The story of the Roman missionaries is easily told, for we have a clear and trustworthy record of it. It runs thus :

Somewhere about the year 580, almost the time

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"DE IRA ERUTI."

I

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when the English conquest reached its first stage, one Gregory, a noble Roman, abbot of a monastery which he had himself founded, passing through the slavemarket of Rome, was attracted by the fair faces and flaxen hair of some youths exposed for sale. "Who are these?" he asked of the slave-dealer. "They come from Britain." "Are they Christians or Pagans?" Pagans." "Alas! that men so bright of face should be possessed of the author of darkness! of what tribe are they?" "Angles." "Well called, for they have the faces of angels, and should be co-heirs with the angels in heaven. But, from what province do they come?" "They are Deiri.” "It is well, rescued from the wrath of God and made Christians." A few days afterwards he set out with some of his monks on a missionary journey to the people of whom he had thus heard. But the Romans had learnt to love him so well that they compelled him to return. For nearly twenty years his plan had to be put aside. Even when in 590 he became Pope, other more pressing matters claimed his attention. At last, in 595, the time seemed to have come. He chose from among the monks of his old monastery a certain Augustine, and sent him with some companions to do the work from which he had been himself hindered. The little company set out; but when they reached Gaul they heard such terrifying accounts of the savagery of the English that Augustine returned to Rome to beg that they might be released from their task. Gregory refused. "The more difficult the labour the greater the reward," was his answer. Then they went on, but "De ira eruti."

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