Page:VCH London 1.djvu/250

 A HISTORY OF LONDON bread, and on his persisting in his refusal, they expelled him from their king- dom. Kent having also relapsed into paganism under Eadbald son of Ethelbert, Mellitus, with Justus Bishop of Rochester, took refuge in Gaul. Eadbald was soon afterwards converted, and Mellitus returned to England a year later ; but the Londoners refused to receive him back and continued in their idolatry.^ No further attempt seems to have been made to recover London from heathenism until 653, when Sigebert King of the East Saxons, a friend of Oswy of Northumbria, became a Christian, and asked for teachers from Northumbria to convert his people. Two priests were sent, one of whom, Cedd, returned before long to be consecrated Bishop of the East Saxons, and afterwards successfully worked in that kingdom, building churches and ordaining priests and deacons. He was above all a missionary bishop, and probably had no fixed seat. Bede names ' Ythancester ' and Tilbury as the centres of his mission,^ but makes no mention of London, nor does he call him Bishop of London. This silence may be accounted for by the fact that London was then ' fluctuating between the condition of an independent ■commonwealth and that of a dependency of the Mercian kings.' * Cedd died at Lastingham in 664,' and in the same year Essex was devastated by plague. There were at that time two kings, Sighere and Sebbi. Sighere in a panic forsook the Christian faith with his people, while Sebbi stood firm,'" and probably London belonged to the portion under Sighere's rule.'' In any case the relapse was short, as Bishop Jaruman was sent from Mercia and recovered the backsliders.'^ Cedd's successor. Wine, who has been called ' the one unworthy bishop of the age of the conversion,' " was expelled from the see of Winchester in 666,'* and ' bought with a price the see of the city of London from Wulfhere, King of the Mercians.' '° There, according to Bede, he remained to the end of his life, but tradition says that three years before his death he retired as a penitent to Winchester.'^ The next bishop was St. Earconwald, whose influence on the religious life of London was felt for centuries after his death, but about whom very little is definitely known. Stubbs describes him as ' one of those early prelates whose posthumous fame, bearing no proportion to the known events of their history, shows that their whole life and character impressed their generation more than any single act or trait.' '^ Earconwald was consecrated as Bishop of London by Theodore about 675 ; " before that time he had founded two monasteries, one for nuns at Barking and another for monks at Chertsey, and was known as a man of most holy life. Bede relates that when he was infirm he was carried about in a horse litter, which after his death was preserved by his disciples and was still in Bede's time performing miracles of healing." He was present at the ° Bede, op. cit. i, 85, 89, 91 et seq. See also Plummer's notes on passages quoted. ' Ibid. 172 et seq.; ii, 178. ' Freeman, Norman Conq. i, 23. ' Ibid. 27. '" Bede, op. cit. i, 199. " V.C.H. Lond. ii, ' Political History.' " Bede, op. cit. i, 199. " Art. by Stubbs in Diet. Christ. Biog. iv, 1 190. " The date is given by Flor. Wigorn. Chron. (Engl. Hist. Soc), i, 271. See also Plummer's notes in Bede, op. cit. ii, 146, 147. " Bede, op. cit. i, 141, ' Scdem Lundoniae civitatis.' " Wharton, .i4ngl. Sacra, i, 192. " Diet. Christ. Biog. iii, 177. "Bede, op. cit. i, 218; Flor. Wigorn. Chron., 33. Bede's words are, 'Theodorus archiepiscopus . . . Orientalibus Saxonibus . . . Earconualdum constituit episcopum in civitate Lundonia.' " Bede, op. cit. i, 218. 172