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Then it was that Augustine, with the help of King Ethelbert, invited to his speech the bishops and teachers of the Britons, in the place which is yet named Augustine's Oak, on the borders of the Hwiccii and West Saxons.
The great fabric of the Roman law indeed never took root in England, but it is impossible not to recognize the result of the influence of the Roman missionaries in the fact that codes of the customary English law began to be put in writing soon after their arrival. A year passed before Ethelbert yielded to the preaching of Augustine.
After the death of ETHELBERT, EDWIN, King of Northumbria, who was such a good king that it was said a woman or child might openly carry a purse of gold, in his reign, without fear, allowed his child to be baptised, and held a great council to consider whether he and his people should all be Christians or not. It was decided that they should be.
Modern research has decided that it is of later date, but there is no doubt that on the spot on which it now stands, Bertha, the wife of Ethelbert who was ruling when Augustine landed with his monks had a little chapel, as Bede relates, "in the east of the city," where she worshipped, before her husband's conversion, with her chaplain, Luidhard, a French priest.
Now those greetings were over, and Offa led Ethelbert into the hall. Then Gymbert the marshal came and took us to our quarters, that we might prepare for the feast, giving some of us in charge of his men, while he led away the leaders of the party himself toward the guest hall by the palace.
They each sat on the throne Ethelbald, Ethelbert, and Ethelred; but their reigns were short, for in twenty years they too had passed away, to be succeeded by the strong, brave, and learned man who drove the Danish' invaders finally from the shores of England, or forced them to become peaceful workers of the soil.
Judith at fourteen years of age became Ethelwulf's second wife, and when the old King died two years later, to the amazement and scandal of the nation married her stepson Ethelbald. According to Ethelwulf's will, Ethelbald became King of Wessex, Ethelbert, the second son, King of Kent, while Ethelred and Alfred were to be in the line of succession to Ethelbald.
Soon Ethelbert left the hall, and men smiled to one another, for they deemed that he was seeking some quiet with the princess. But he was only following his own custom, and I knew that he would most likely be in the little chapel for the last service of the day. Offa sat on, and it seemed to me that his face grew flushed, and his voice somewhat loud, as the time passed.
T. Godfrey Faussett's plan of Roman Canterbury appears to carry the wall just as far as this point, and then turns at an acute angle towards the south side of the Cathedral. Following the direction Queen Bertha would have taken brings one to the great gateway of St. Augustine's Abbey, the Benedictine monastery founded by Augustine on the land given for that purpose by Ethelbert.
Thrones were placed for him and Bertha on the hillside, and the band of monks approached, bearing a silver cross, and chanting a hymn, with Augustine at their head. Ethelbert listened attentively as Augustine told him about the Christian religion, and invited him to forsake the cruel bloodthirsty gods of the English.
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