death of Ceaulin, and the succession of his son Cealric, had obtained an indirect authority over all the other kingdoms, with the single exception of Northumberland.

2. Edilwalch, grandson of Ella, and his successor in the kingdom of the South Saxons, comprehending the counties of Sussex and Surrey.

3. Cealric, the immediate successor of the abovementioned Ceaulin, king of the West Saxons, and a descendant of Cerdic the founder of that kingdom. He governed the counties of Hants, Berks, Wilts, Somerset, Dorset, Devon, and that part of Cornwall which had not been secured by the Britons.

4. Sebert, king of the East Saxons, whose territory comprised the district which afterwards formed the diocese of London.

5. Ethelfrid, great-grandson of Ida, founder of the kingdom of Northumbria, and the successor to his dominions, consisting of the territory north of the Humber, and south of Edinburgh. It was generally subdivided into Bernicia, which contained Northumberland and Scotland south of Edinburgh; and Deira, which comprised all Yorkshire, and part of Lancashire, Durham, Westmoreland, and Cumberland.

6. Redwald, king of East Anglia, including Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire, the Isle of Ely, and part of Bedfordshire.

7. Wibba, son of Crida, king of Mercia, the largest province of the Heptarchy. It consisted of all the counties which have not been already specified, with the exception of those districts which were occupied by the Britons.

One of the first acts of Queen Bertha on her arrival at Canterbury, the seat of Ethelbert's government, was to

obtain leave for the celebration of Mass in the little church of St. Martin, to the east of the city, which had been built in the time of the Romans, and to this day bears marks of its extreme antiquity. Here, Luidhard, the queen's chaplain and confessor, as Capgrave relates in his Life, was in the practice of offering the holy Sacrifice of the Altar; and "thither," says St. Bede, " the queen repaired for her devotions." So pious and discreet a lady could not but bestow many thoughts upon the sad heathen condition both of her husband and his subjects, and would naturally desire to emulate the example of her holy aunts, Clotilda and Ingundis, who were severally the means of converting their husbands, Clovis king of Soissons, the founder of the French monarchy, and St. Hermenegild, prince of Spain; the one, from Paganism to Christianity, the other from Arianism to the Catholic faith. These precedents in her own family, and that, again, of queen Theodelinda, whose influence had been similarly blessed in Lombardy,1 had no doubt worked upon the mind of good queen Bertha, who had accordingly the honour, some years after, of being commended by St. Gregory the Great, for the zeal she had long manifested in the cause of the Church.2

In such charitable intentions the queen was powerfully seconded by her confessor, St. Luidhard, whom Capgrave even calls, for his efforts towards the conversion of the English, the "harbinger" of St. Augustine. It seems not unlikely that Luidhard, soon after his arrival in this country, had made some unsuccessful attempts to stir up his brother prelates of France in behalf of the destitute English, since St. Gregory the Great, writing about this time to Theoderic and Theodebert, kings

S. Greg. Ep. lib. xiv. 12.

2 Ib. lib. xi. 29.

of the Franks, severely condemns the supineness of their Church in neglecting to provide for the religious wants of their neighbours, the Anglo-Saxons, whose "earnest longing for the grace of life, had," he continues, "reached his This longing is no doubt to be traced to the influence of queen Bertha and her confessor; from one of whom the Pope had probably received his information upon the promising state of England.

ears." 3

It thus appears that the mission of St. Augustine, through the great mercy of Divine Providence, was brought to pass at the very crisis of all others, when matters in England were in the best train for his reception. When St. Gregory first projected the English mission, and had, as we have seen, actually entered upon it, England was torn asunder by internal war; now it was comparatively united under a single head. Then, Ethelbert was one of the most insignificant kings of the Heptarchy; and, if the chronology here followed be correct, was not even married to Bertha. Now, on the contrary, from one of the least, he had become the very chief of the Anglo-Saxon potentates, with authority over the other kings, and through them over the whole English nation. Alone, too, of all the kings of the Heptarchy, he was brought by marriage into immediate contact with the Church; and the delay in the execution of St. Gregory's purpose had allowed time, if not for his union with Bertha, at least for the ripening of her influence over him, and for the continued exercise and display of those endearing qualities of Christian meekness and love, which had not only engaged universal affection towards her own person, but had likewise conciliated both her husband and his subjects towards the

3 S. Greg. Ep. lib. vi. 58. vid. inf. p. 84, 5.

religion upon which her virtues shed so bright a lustre. Nor should it be forgotten, that a very unforeseen and unlikely course of events, had lately placed the supreme, or all but supreme, power over England, in the hands of a prince, not merely predisposed by absolutely singular circumstances towards the reception of the Christian faith, but the seat of whose government was within a few miles of the port at which the missionaries must land, and in whose more immediate dominions they would find themselves as soon as they set foot on English ground. Had some decidedly hostile territory intercepted their progress from the port of their landing to Ethelbert's kingdom, who can say what hindrances might not have presented themselves, or whether they would have been so much as suffered to land at all? Even the kindly offices of the queen sufficed but to procure them bare toleration. What, then, if they had encountered on their arrival nothing but the jealousy and suspicion with which barbarians and heathens would be apt to regard a body of adventurers suddenly making their appearance upon the coast, and demanding entrance into the interior of the country without ostensible reason, or even intelligible pretext? However, it is idle to speculate upon such contingencies, since we know that He who orders all things for the good of His elect, never permits real difficulties to stand in their way. Speculations of this kind are then only pious, when used to aid and strengthen the feelings of devout wonder and thankfulness, which find scope for their exercise in every page of the history of our Lord's actual dealings with His Church, and nowhere more fully than in the annals of the Church in England.

CHAPTER IX.

ST. AUGUSTINE; HIS JOURNEY THROUGH FRANCE.

Ir was not till the sixth year of St. Gregory's Pontificate, that he was permitted to carry into effect his merciful dispositions towards the English nation. It may be inferred, indeed, from the words of one of his biographers,1 that, two years earlier, he made his choice of the person to whom the conduct of the mission was to be entrusted. Indeed, from the first moment of his elevation to the Popedom, he seems to have kept his heart intently fixed on this great object of his hopes and prayers, which, however, he was restrained from attempting to compass till "all things were ready" for the orderly fulfilment of the work. In a letter to Syagrius, Bishop of Autun, he speaks of the English mission as having been in his thoughts long before it was accomplished." And the following letter, written about a year before the expedition to England, gives proof of his constant interest in the welfare of our country. It is addressed to Candidus, a Presbyter, who was on his way to take charge of the ecclesiastical patrimony in Gaul.

GREGORY TO CANDIDUS.

"We desire your Affection, to whom has been entrusted, with the help of our Lord Jesus Christ, the control

1 John the Deacon.

2 S. Greg. Ep. lib. ix. 108.