cords: "This year king Ceadwalla went to Rome and received
baptism from Pope Sergius, and he gave him the name of Peter, and in
about seven days afterwards, on the twelfth before the Kalends of May
(April 20), while he was yet in his baptismal garments, he died, and
he was buried in S. Peter's." The fair-haired convert, who had met
with a solemn and enthusiastic reception from Pope Sergius, the
clergy, and the people, received after his death the greatest honor
that the Church and the Romans could offer him: he was buried in the
"Popes' Corner," or _porticus pontificum_, almost side by side with
Gregory the Great. The verses engraved on the tomb of the latter--

"Ad Christum Anglos convertit pietate magistra
Sic fidei acquirens agmina gente nova,"

(by pious cares he converted the English to Christ, acquiring thereby
for the true faith multitudes of a new race)--could not have found a
more convincing witness to their truth than this grave of Ceadwalla,
because with his conversion, which was due to the preaching of S.
Wilfrid, the Christian religion spread rapidly among the Saxons of the
West, and that part of the country which had most resisted the new
faith was forever secured to Christian civilization. In fact Wessex
became the most powerful member of the Heptarchy, till it attained
absolute dominion over the whole island.

Ceadwalla's tomb, forgotten, and perhaps concealed by superstructures,
was brought to light again towards the end of the sixteenth century.
Giovanni de Deis, in a work published in 1588, says: "The epitaph[112]
and the tomb on which it was engraved lay for a long time concealed
from the eyes of visitors, and only in later years it was discovered
by the masons engaged in rebuilding S. Peter's." Not a fragment of the
monument has come down to us, and such was the contempt with which the
learned men of the age looked upon these historical monuments, that
none of them condescended to give us the details of the discovery.
"It is deeply to be regretted," says cardinal Mai, "that such a
notable trophy as the tomb of Ceadwalla, the royal catechumen, which
was erected and inscribed by Sergius I., disappeared from the Vatican,
and was irretrievably lost, together with innumerable monuments of
ancient art and piety, owing to the calamities of the times, the
avidity of the workmen, and the negligence of the superintendents."

"Ceadwalla's tomb," I quote from Tesoroni, "was not the only monument
of