CONVERSION OF ETHELBERT.
"The oracles are dumb, no voice or hideous hum
Runs through the archëd roof, in words deceiving.
Apollo from his shrine can no more divine,
With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving.
No nightly trance or breathéd spell
Inspires the pale-eyed priest from the prophetic cell."
MILTON.
It will be readily supposed that many of the early Saxon chieftains, or
kings, for it matters not by which title we call them, had by this time
died, and been succeeded by their sons and kinsmen. That many had also
perished in the wars with the Britons we have already shown, and now
when the Octarchy was established, and the ancient inhabitants of the
country were either conquered or driven into one corner of the island,
when it might be expected that Peace had at last alighted and taken
up her abode in the land, the Saxon sovereigns began to war with each
other. We have before shown that when the Saxons went out to battle,
they with one consent selected a king--no matter how high might be
the rank of those who had sworn to serve under him, they obeyed his
commands; when the war was over, each again stepped into his former
dignity, and the power thus given for a time to the war-king was at
an end. Some such king was acknowledged by the Saxon sovereigns, and
he was called the Bretwalda, or king of Britain, though it is not
clear that the other sovereigns ever paid him any homage, and the only
inference we can draw from the claim set up by Ethelbert, the young
king of Kent, is, that it was conferred upon that prince who was the
nearest akin to Woden. Something of the kind is shadowed forth in the
claim, which is grounded alone on his descent from Hengist. Ella,
king of Sussex, appears to have been the first who bore the title of
Bretwalda in Britain; he died, and it seems as if some time elapsed
before any other of the Saxon kings assumed the title; the next that
did was Ceawlin, king of Wessex. Ethelbert of Kent rose up, and
disputed the claim. Ceawlin was not a man to be moved from his high
estate by the descendant of Hengist, and from this dispute sprang the
first civil war between the Saxon kings. Ethelbert was but little more
than sixteen, when he so daringly threw defiance in the face of the
king of Wessex, and Ceawlin was at that time one of the most powerful
of all the Saxon kings, and, after having defeated Ethelbert, he, on
the death of Cissa, king of Sussex, annexed that kingdom to his own;
nor was there a sovereign throughout the whole Saxon states bold enough
to wrest the plunder from his hand. For a youth like Ethelbert to have
thus bearded so powerful a king, and to have been the first to commence
hostilities, and finally to have succeeded in gaining the envied title,
evinces a courage and a perseverance which draw the eye anxiously
forward to watch the result of his future career, nor shall we be
disappointed in the issue. But, before passing to the most important
event in his life, we must detail the circumstances by which it was
brought on.
One day, as a monk named Gregory was passing through the market of
Rome, looking, like others, on the great variety of treasures which
were piled there, and for which nearly every corner of Europe had
been ransacked, he was struck by a group of beautiful boys. There was
something in their white naked limbs, fair complexions, and light long
flowing hair, which at once arrested the eye of the kind-hearted monk.
He turned to a keen-eyed merchant who was awaiting a purchaser (and who
had probably many other things beside these beautiful boys to sell),
and inquired from what country they had been brought? He was answered,
Britain. The next question he asked was whether the inhabitants were
Christians or Pagans? He was told that they were Pagans. Gregory sighed
heavily when he heard this, and, as he fixed his eye with a tender
and pitiful look upon these fair and beautiful slaves, he exclaimed:
"Oh, grief of griefs! that the author of darkness should lay claim to
beings of such fair forms--that there should be so much grace in the
countenance, yet none in the soul."
When told that they were of the race of the Angles, he said they
were worthily named, for their faces were angelic; and when informed
that the province from which they came was called the Deiri, he
paused--divided the word, dwelt upon it, then exclaimed, "De-ira Dei
(from the wrath of God) they must be torn." But when he further heard
that the king of the country from whence they came was named Ella, the
beautiful picture which had opened before his imagination, merely
conjured up from the ideas created by suggestive sound, was complete,
and, in his happy enthusiasm, he exclaimed, "Hallelujah! the praise
of God must yet be sung in that land." Imagine the quivering lip and
tearful eye which would first show the impression of a kind-hearted man
and a scholar, when told that these fair children had been dragged from
their homes, and brought from a distant island, far away over the sea,
and stood there huddled together, seeking to avoid the merciless eye
of the unfeeling merchant, who found them the most troublesome part of
the cargo he had brought, for the bales he probably sat upon required
no feeding, and as a point of business he had been compelled to keep
those young slaves plump and in good order, and doubtless, while
showing them to the monk, he made them display themselves to the best
advantage. They, struck by the kindness which must have beamed, like a
glory, around the countenance of the good monk Gregory, perhaps wished
that they might be purchased by so friendly-looking a master, for they
would be unable to comprehend a single word he said beyond the names
of their country and kings. The quivering lip and tearful eye would
soon change into the lighted look of enthusiasm, as, bit by bit, the
Pagan island rose before the fancy of the tender-hearted monk, as he
saw their beautiful heathen mothers and fairer sisters kneeling before
senseless stocks and stones; and oh! what a chill must have come over
his kind heart when the pope, whom he entreated to send missionaries
into that heathen land, rejected his petition. Still it prevented not
good Gregory from purchasing the slaves, who had so deeply interested
him. He further clothed and educated them, and would, had he not been
prevented, have accompanied them on their return to Britain.
Monk Gregory, at last, became the Roman pontiff; but the splendour
by which he was now surrounded altered not his gentle nature; he
remembered those beautiful barbarians,--had many a time thought of
their island home over the waves, and the fair mothers who looked
in vain for their return; and he solicited a monk, to whom he had
doubtless before-time confided this wish, which ever seems to have been
nearest his heart, to undertake the journey; and Augustin was chosen to
fulfil this mission. The monks who were appointed to attend Augustin in
his mission had heard such rumours of the ferocity of the Saxons, that
they expressed a desire to return to Rome, although they had proceeded
some distance on their journey; and they so far gave way to their fears
as to prevail upon Augustin to go back and solicit the pope to recall
them. The pontiff, however, told them that to abandon an undertaking
which they had commenced was more disgraceful than if they had not
accepted it; bade them proceed in God's name, appointed Augustin abbot
over them, and commanded them to obey him. Further, he gave them
letters to the prelates and kings through whose countries they would
have to pass.
To the daughter of Charibert, king of the Franks, Ethelbert was
married; and although she was a Christian, and he a pagan, it had been
no bar to their union; Bertha was to follow her own creed, Ethelbert
his: he bowed before Woden, she acknowledged the existence of the
true God. Vortigern and Rowena had lived together on the same terms
before-time. Augustin arrived in Britain, with his train of fifty monks
and interpreters, which the king of the Franks had provided, and landed
in the isle of Thanet. How different the intent of his mission to that
of the Saxon chiefs who had landed there a century and a half before
him! They came to kill, to earn their wages by bloodshed; these came to
save, and were neither armed with spear, sword, nor battle-axe; their
only shield was the cross of Christ, and on their banner the figure of
the Redeemer was borne. They came with no other war-cry than the Litany
which they chanted as they moved gravely along. What glorious scenes
illustrative of the progress of our religion yet remain to be painted!
How easy to picture that ancient procession as it passed: their landing
from the ship: their prayer offered up on the beach: the misbelieving
Saxons looking on in wonder: some priest of Woden pouring into the ear
of a listening chief a disparaging story: the countenances of children
looking on with a mixture of fear and wonder: heathen mothers pitying
the figure upon the banner, and wondering what he had done to be nailed
upon the cross; or perhaps thinking that they had come to solicit aid
against those who had been guilty of such inhuman cruelty, and their
motherly hearts at once enlisted in favour of the strangers, who
came to seek the means of vengeance for such an outrage. Or perhaps
they pitied the poor monks who had no arms to defend themselves, and
entreated their husbands to assist them. Such fancies would naturally
float over their benighted minds, for at what other conclusions could
they arrive from what they now saw? Doubtless the ship, when first
seen out at sea, would awaken other thoughts, and many an armed figure
paced the shore impatiently, and awaited the arrival of the vessel,
drawing circles upon the sand with their pointed weapons, to while away
the time, as they stood ready to offer up fresh victims on the altar of
Odin.
Ethelbert received the tidings of their coming rather coldly, but
still not unkindly; he bade them to remain where they were, supplied
them with such things as their immediate wants required, and promised,
in the meantime, to consider what he would do for them. The bright
eyes of Bertha had had their influence; her sweet voice had made an
inroad into the stony heart of Ethelbert; but for her beautiful face,
he would probably have consigned the whole race of trembling monks to
Neiflheim and Hela the terrible, or offered them up as a rich sacrifice
to Odin. But even Bertha, great as her power appears to have been over
him, could only influence him in their favour by slow degrees; he
deliberated for several days before he consented to meet them, and when
he did at last agree to a conference, he chose the open air,--still
true to his ancient faith, for there he had been taught to believe
that all magical influence was powerless. How looked he when he first
beheld them?--Perhaps he clung to the fair Christian that stood by his
side, and as she pressed his arm, and he felt that she also was of
the same faith, the colour mounted his cheek for a moment, and, as it
would appear, his heart half reproached him for having treated them so
coldly, for he at once kindly commanded the missionaries to sit down.
Doubtless the spot chosen for this interview was a circle surrounded
with seats of turf, such as the Saxons assembled in, in the early ages,
when their witena-gemots were held in the open air. Surrounded with his
nobles, the king listened attentively until Augustin had made known the
object of his mission. Ethelbert, who was endowed with clear judgment,
waited patiently till the abbot had finished, and then answered: "Your
promises are fair, but new and uncertain. I cannot abandon the rites
which my people have hitherto observed; but as you have come a long
way to tell us what you believe to be true, we will not only hold you
harmless, but treat you hospitably. Nor will we forbid any one you can
convince to join in your faith." Such was the substance of Ethelbert's
answer; a more candid or a kinder one never issued from a pagan's
lips; but those lips had been breathed on by the prayers of Bertha,
and her own rounded roses had kissed their way into his heart; he had
found the honey that hung upon them, far sweeter than the richest
sacrifice that ever steamed up from the altars of Woden. Ethelbert gave
them a church in Canterbury, which was built in the time of the Romans.
The British Christians had there bowed to their Maker; it had been
Bertha's place of worship, and was probably the only one in the wide
county of Kent where prayers to the true God were offered up,--where
she herself had many a time, amid hopes and fears, prayed for the day
to come which had at last arrived. She, a stranger in a foreign land,
far away from the home of her fathers, surrounded by pagan altars and
the hideous images of rude idols, had never once despaired, as she
leant, like Hope, upon her anchor, with no one near to comfort her, but
even while the hymns of Odin rang upon her ear, in the midst of her
devotions, had kept her eye fixed upon the star which was mirrored in
the troubled waters that washed around the cold anchor, and chilled her
naked feet.
In this ancient British church, Augustin and his monks administered the
rites and ceremonies of the Christian religion unmolested,--numerous
converts were soon made, and baptised, and chief amongst these was
king Ethelbert. As a proof of his earnestness and sincerity, the newly
converted Saxon sovereign granted the monks permission to repair all
the British churches in his kingdom, which had before-time been devoted
to Christian worship. The pope also conferred on Augustin the title
of archbishop, and sent him over a pall, woven from the purest and
whitest lamb's-wool, and chequered with purple crosses, that, when worn
over his shoulders, it might remind him of Christ the good Shepherd,
and of the crosses and perils he endured in bringing home the lost
sheep on his shoulders, and gathering them together in the fold. But
vestments for the altar, sacerdotal garments, sacred vessels, and
relics of martyrs, were not all that Gregory sent over to Britain; for
manuscript Bibles, copies of the Gospels, psalters, and legends of the
saints and martyrs, were among the more substantial treasures which the
learned pope poured into our island, and some of which our own immortal
Alfred translated with his own hand in a later day. The bindings of
many of these manuscripts were emblazoned with silver images of our
Saviour, and glittering glories of yellow gold, from the centre of
which blazed precious stones, so that when uplifted by the priest, who
stood high above their heads as he expounded the holy mysteries, their
eyes were dazzled by the splendour of those richly bound volumes, and
their senses impressed with a solemn reverence, as they looked upon
the image of their Redeemer. He also sent over other fellow-labourers,
and amongst these were men distinguished for their piety and learning.
Gregory was a man endowed with great discernment, possessing also those
peculiar qualities which have ever marked the profoundest statesmen;
in these essentials he stood high above his archbishop Augustin. The
far-seeing pope knew that he had to deal with a race of idolaters,
many of whom would change their creed to please their sovereign, or
from other interested motives; and, conscious of the purity of his own
design and the holiness of his cause, he resolved that there should
be nothing startling or forbidding, or much at variance with their
ancient customs, in the outward signs and ceremonies of the Christian
religion. With a liberality of opinion far outstriding that of the age,
he rightly concluded, that whatever was not really evil in itself,
it was useless to abolish. Let them retain their sacrifices, argued
Gregory; when the idols are removed, and the remembrance of them
destroyed, let them slaughter their cattle, sacrifice, and feast upon
the offering, and thank God for his great abundance. What mattered it
if on saint-days they erected arbours of green branches around the
church, feasted, and made merry within them, so long as it was done in
remembrance of the saint to whom the building was dedicated? Surely
this was better than holding such celebration in honour of senseless
idols. Even their pagan temples he would not allow to be hurled down,
conscious that if such places had been held sacred while set apart for
the worship of graven images of wood or stone, they would be doubly
revered when the light of the true gospel broke in glory within those
ancient walls.
Pope Gregory had, doubtless, become acquainted with the principal
points of their heathen faith, and had concluded that if only rapine
and slaughter, and brave but brutal deeds, had been extolled within
those walls, and were the sure passports that opened the envied halls
of Valhalla, he might safely venture to wrestle with this pagan idol,
and overthrow him upon his own ground: that the doctrines which
breathed only of peace and goodwill, and love and charity, and holy
faith in a dying Redeemer, would still be the same if offered up from
the very altars on which Odin himself had stood. It was the substance
and the spirit which dawned upon the great intellectual eye of Pope
Gregory, and made him tread boldly amongst the broken idols which lay
scattered at his feet, where others would have hesitated to have moved.
He daringly grafted the true faith upon a heathen stock, well knowing
that neither the stem nor the soil would militate against the growth of
the goodly fruit with which the branches would on a future day be hung.
Gregory would never have entered into that fatal controversy beneath
the oak, as Augustin had done, about the celebration of Easter Sunday,
and which, if it did not lead to the slaughter of the monks of Bangor,
as some have believed, lessened the archbishop in the eyes of the
English priests, and caused much dissension and bitter feeling amongst
the Saxons. But Ethelbert, Bertha, and Augustin died; and Eadbald
became king of Kent.
Eadbald took possession of his father's throne and widow at the
same time; for, after the death of Bertha, Ethelbert had married
another princess of the same nation as his former wife. The priests
raised their voices, and denounced the marriage of Eadbald with his
step-mother; he heeded them not, but turned pagan again, and a great
portion of his subjects changed their religion with him. Sigebert, the
king of Essex, his father's friend, who had become a Christian, also
died about this time, and his sons again embraced their old heathen
creed, though they still occasionally visited the Christian church.
They were one day present while the bishop was administering the
Eucharist: "Why dost thou not offer us that white bread which thou art
giving to others," said they, "and which thou wert wont to give to our
father's sib?" The bishop made answer, that if they would wash in the
same font in which their father the king was baptized when he became a
Christian, they might partake of the white bread. They replied, that
they would not be washed in the fountain, yet they demanded the bread.
The bishop refused to give it them, and the heathen chiefs drove the
monks out of Essex. Some of them went into Kent, others left Britain
for a time; and as the remnant were on the eve of departing, Eadbald,
by a strange interposition, again renounced his pagan faith, and
intreated the priests to remain behind, promising also to assist them,
as his father Ethelbert had before done, in the work of conversion.
Whether it was a dream, or the reproaches of his own conscience, or
the penance which Laurence had inflicted upon himself, before he again
appeared in the presence of Eadbald, or the working of His mighty hand
"who moves in a mysterious way his wonders to perform," can never be
known. Suffice it that the Saxon king saw the "error of his ways" and
repented.