And perhaps Bertha may
have had a share in sending Gregory the reports which he mentions, that
the Saxons in England were ready to receive the Gospel, and in begging
him to take pity on them.

PART IV.

In the year 596 Gregory sent off a party of monks as missionaries to the
English Saxons. The head of them was Augustine, who had been provost
(that is, the highest person after the abbot)[59] of the monastery to
which the pope himself had formerly belonged. And, at the same time,
Gregory directed the manager of his estates in France to buy up a number
of captive Saxon youths, and to place them in monasteries, that they
might learn the Christian faith, and might afterwards become
missionaries to their own countrymen.

[59] See page 150.

When Augustine and his brethren had got as for as the south of France,
they heard many terrible stories of the English, so they took fright at
the thought of going among such savages, whose very language was unknown
to them; and Augustine went back to Rome to beg that they might be
allowed to give up their undertaking. But Gregory would not consent to
this. He encouraged them to go on, and he gave Augustine letters to some
French kings and bishops, desiring them to assist the missionaries, and
to supply them with interpreters who understood the language of the
Saxons. Augustine, therefore, returned to the place where he had left
his companions. They made their way across France, and in 597 he landed,
with about forty monks, in the Isle of Thanet.

Ethelbert lived at Canterbury, the capital of the Kentish kingdom, at no
great distance from the place where the missionaries had landed. On
receiving notice of their arrival, he sent to desire that they would
remain where they were until he should visit them; and within a few days
he went to them. The meeting was held in the open air; for Ethelbert had
a superstitious fear that they might do him some mischief by magical
arts, if he were to trust himself under a roof with them. The
missionaries advanced in procession, with a silver cross borne before
them, and displaying a picture of the crucified Saviour; and, as they
slowly moved onwards, they chanted a prayer for their own salvation and
that of the people to whom they had been sent. Ethelbert received them
courteously, and desired them to sit down; and then Augustine made a
speech, telling the king that they were come to preach the word of life
to him and to his subjects. "These are