Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 8.djvu/292

Rh 278 ENGLAND [HISTORY. Roman and Scottish share in the con- versiou. No British share. The con version gradual. Conver sion of Kent, Essex, and East Anglia ; of North um berland. years of the sixth century, Kent at least must have been striving to bring itself within the European circle, when we find its king .Elhelberht married to a Christian wife, the daughter uf a Frankish king. . It is to be noticed how ever that neither the queen herself nor the Frankish bishop whom she brought with her seem to have directly done anything for the conversion of the king or his people. That work could be done by nothing short of the majesty of Rome. One point which cannot be too strongly insisted on at this stage is that the Church of England which was founded by Augustine has nothing whatever to do with the early British Church. In after times certain British dioceses submitted to English ecclesiastical rale, and that is all. The Christianity of England did not come wholly from any single source ; and one of the sources from which it came was found within the British islands. But tha t source was not a British source. The Roman planted ; the Scot watered ; but the Briton did nothing. He not only did nothing ; he refused to do anything ; he would have nothing to say to Augustine s invitation to join in preaching the gospel to the heathen English. Theologians may dis pute over the inferences which may be drawn from the fact ; but the historical fact cannot be altered to please any man. The Church of England is the daughter of the Church of Rome. She is so perhaps more directly than any other Church in Europe. England was the special con quest of the Roman Church, the first laud which looked up with reverence to the Roman pontiff, while it owed not even a nominal allegiance to the Roman Ciesar. The conversion of the English was gradual, and, on the whole, peaceful. Christianity was nowhere forced on an unwilling people by fire and sword, as was done in some later conversions. We find wars between Christian and heathen kingdoms in which religion is clearly one great animating cause on both sides ; but we do not hear of persecutions or wars of religion within the bosom of any kingdom. Asa rule, the king is converted first. The great men follow, parhaps in duty bound as his thegns. The mass of the people follow their leaders. But all is done without compulsion ; if conversion was not always the result of argument, it was at least the result of example. This may perhaps show that the old religion sat somewhat lightly on its votaries, and in some cases the new religion seems to have sat somewhat lightly on its converse. The Christian king sometimes had heathen sons, and their accession was followed by a re ap&e. But, in the space of about a hundred years, all the English kingdoms had be come Christian. The men of Wight in their island-, and the men of Sussex isolated between the sea and the great wood, were the last to cleave to the idols of their fathers. The seventh century was the great time of struggle between the two religions. It was also the time when Mercia first stood forth as an equal rival with Northumber land, Wessex, and Kent. Kent soon sinks into a secondary rank, and leaves the first place to be disputed between the three other great powers. At the beginning of the period when the first Roman missionaries came, in 597, the Bretwaldadom, which had been held by /Elle of Sussex and Ceawlin of Wessex, was held by /Ethelberht of Kent. He is expressly said to have been supreme over all the kingdoms south of the Humber. That this supremacy was not a mere name is shewn by the fact that his safe-con duct held good when Augustine crossed the still heathen land of Wessex to confer with the British bishops on the banks of the Severn. Under ^Ethelberht, the Kentish Church was planted by Augustine, and from Kent the new teaching spread over Essex and East-Anglia. From Kent too came the first conversion of Northumberland, and with it of Lindesey, by the preaching of Paulinus under the powerful Bret waldaEad wine of Deira. That king had, before his conversion, conquered the Welsh kingdom of Loidis and Elmet, and had made Northumberland the first power iu Britain. His first rivalry was with Wessex, which he brought to acknowledge his supremacy. After his conver sion he had to endure the more dangerous enmity of two powers which united against him on different grounds. The Teutonic conqueror was hateful to the Briton Credwalln, whose kingdom pf Strathclyde, cut off from his southern countrymen by the victory of YEthelfrith, was still a power ful state. The Christian convert was hateful to the heathen Penda, under whom Mercia first became great. Before the two Eadwine fell at Heathfield in 633, and with him fell for a moment the Christianity and the power of Northumberland. The new power of Mercia grew equally to the south at the expense of Wessex. But this first burst of Mercian power was not to be lasting. Before long Northumberland was again united, powerful, and Christian, under the Berniciau Bretwaldas, and her power and religion were first restored for a while by Oswald the saint. He overthrew his British and Christian enemy at Heavenfield in G35. This is a date of importance. In some sort it marks the completion of the English conquest. Much British land was still to be won by hard fighting ; but Cctsdvvalla was the last British prince who could wage aggressive and dangerous warfare against an English rival. Against his heathen and English enemy Oswald was less successful. He too, .like Eadwine, fell before Penda at Maserficld in 642. A time of confusion and division followed, but under Oswiu, the next Bretwalda, Northumberland rose again. In 654 Penda fell before him at Winwedfield, and the armed strife between Christianity and heathendom was at an end. The second conversion of Northumberland, and the conversion of Mercia which followed the fall of Penda, were chiefly the work of the Scots. That name, it must be remembered, though it does not shut out the Scottish colony in Britain, primarily means the. original Scots of Ireland. Columbaand his successors in their holy island linked the two together, and both were zealous in the missionary work, both in Britain and on the continent. But, though a large part of England thus owed its Christianity to the Scots, yet the special Scottish usages did not abide in the churches of Northum berland and Mercia. After much debating, the Bret walda Oswiu adopted, on behalf of his people, the usages of Rome and Kent. Meanwhile Wessex had been converted by an independent mission from the Franks of Gaul under its apostle Birinus. The heathendom of Sussex gave way in 681 to the preaching of the Northumbrian Wilfn th, and a few years later the men of Wight, the last abiding-place of the old gods, were partly converted by Wil frith, partly slaughtered by the West-Saxon Ceadwalla. All England was now Christian; and the English Church was finally organized between 668 and 690 by Theodore of Tarsus. The Roman, the Scot, and the man of the East, thus all worked together to bring the English conquerors of Britain within the pale of the Christian Church, and thereby within the general world of Europe There is something wonderful in the way in which Christianity fitted itself in, so to speak, to the old Teutonic institutions of England. The change in men s Noughts, the change in their ways of looking at most things, must have been great, but there is no sudden break. The old political and social state goes on, the old laws and institu tions are not abolished ; they are hardly modified ; all that happens is that many new laws are inserted among the old. But. the laws bear the old character. The old scale of ranks is enlarged to take in some new members, in the form of the various degrees of the Christian priesthood. Some new crimes are forbidden : some new observances are The Northiirr brian Bret waldas Penda of Mercia. Conver sion of Mereia, Conver sion of Wessex, Suswx, ami Wight. Effect of the con version.