Page:General History of Europe 1921.djvu/282

 2O2 General History oj Europe 321. Saxons and Angles conquer Britain. The islands which are now known as the kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland were at the opening of the Christian Era occupied by several Celtic peoples of whose customs and religion we know almost nothing. Julius Caesar commenced the conquest of the islands (55 B.C.) (234). But the Romans never succeeded in establishing their power beyond the wall which they built from the Clyde to the Firth of Forth to keep out the wild tribes of the North. Even south of the wall the country was not completely Romanized, and the Celtic tongue has actually survived down to the present day in Wales. At the opening of the fifth century the barbarian invasions forced Rome to withdraw its legions from Britain in order to protect its frontiers on the Continent. The island was thus left to be conquered gradually by the Germanic peoples, mainly Saxons and Angles, who came across the North Sea from the region south of Denmark. Almost all record of what went on dur- ing the two centuries following the departure of the Romans has disappeared. No one knows the fate of the original Celtic in- habitants of England. It was formerly supposed that they were all killed or driven to the mountain districts of Wales, but this seems unlikely. More probably they were gradually lost among the dominating Germans, with whom they merged into one people. The Saxon and Angle chieftains established small kingdoms, of which there were seven or eight in the time of Gregory the Great (312,313)- 322. Conversion of Britain. Gregory, while still a simple monk, had been struck with the beauty of some Angles whom he saw one day in the slave market at Rome, and wished to go as a missionary to their people, but permission was refused him. When he became Pope he sent forty monks to England under the leader- ship of a prior named Augustine. The monks were kindly received by the king of Kent, who had a Christian wife, and were given an ancient church at Canterbury. Here they established a mon- astery, and from this center the conversion of the whole island was gradually accomplished. The archbishop of Canterbury has