A Catholic Ruler is the Key to a Christian Land:
Saint Augustine of Canterbury
and the Conversion of
King Saint Ethelbert
England was first reached by the Roman
Empire some sixty years before the birth of our Lord, by Caius Julius Caesar. The initial settlement of the Island with
Romans, however, began after the Emperor Claudius conquered it, along with the
Isles of Orkney, 105 years later.[1] Thus
when Christianity began to spread throughout the empire it also spread to
Britain. When the time of the
persecution of Diocletian came there were many Roman Christians in England who
suffered and died planting the seeds of faith for future generations of English
people. One of the most famous of these
was Saint Alban who was martyred in the year 301.[2]
Following the days of the persecution there was peace for some years until the
outbreak of the Arian Heresy. At the
beginning of the fifth century the Roman Empire fell and shortly after there
was a mass exodus of nearly all Romans from Britain, which included most of the
Christians as well.[3]
Britain, without the Roman Legions to
protect it, was then cast into darkness by plagues of marauding barbarians
coming in from every side of the island.
Britain was again a pagan land, though several missionary journeys were
made to preach the gospel to the heathens and minister to the few Christians
that still remained there. While these
laid the groundwork for its later conversion, there was not lasting and
widespread success. In the year 596 Pope
Saint Gregory the Great sent Saint Augustine of Canterbury along with some
monks to preach the Catholic faith to the inhabitants of the Island that,
because of his efforts, would one day be known as the Island of Saints.[4]
Though of course Saint Augustine had
the aid of almighty God and the backing of the Holy Father, still there seems
to be one crucial factor of his success among the Britons. This key to winning over Britain was
Augustine’s first winning over the pagan King Ethelbert, who initially only
gave his approbation for the carrying out of missionary work, but who would
eventually convert. In 597 Augustine met
with the King for the first time and preached the Gospel to him and explained
his plans for his missionary work in Britain.
Augustine impressed the King with his preaching, but he was unwilling to
give up the old pagan ways of his people, yet he still granted permission for
Augustine to preach in the very city where he resided: Kent, which would later
become the first Diocese in Britain.[5]
This was a monumental victory for Augustine at the very outset of his work in
Britain. He was then able to move around
fairly freely and preach the faith to the people and win many to it. This story is strikingly similar to another
that happened a century earlier on the island just to the West when another missionary
was sent to convert a pagan people. This
missionary was Saint Patrick and the island was Ireland. He was able to have similar success in
converting that island after receiving the approbation of the pagan Irish High
King Laoghaire who preferred Saint Patrick’s preaching to that of the Arians,
but would not himself give up his pagan beliefs.[6]
While Laoghaire never converted,
however, King Ethelbert did convert to the Catholic Faith at the urging of
Saint Augustine. The conversion of the
British King was a boost to the Catholic Faith in the Kingdom since now both
secular and ecclesiastical authorities were working in consort to rid the land
of paganism and institute the Catholic Faith.
It was during this time that Pope Gregory wrote a letter to the King in
which he compared this new Christian Ruler to the Emperor Constantine and spoke
of how beneficial it was to have a ruler that professes the faith.[7]
This too even more profoundly parallels what happened a century earlier just to
the south in Gaul when Saint Remigius converted the pagan king Clovis. Unfortunately, the parallel is similar in a dark
way as well for in both instances upon the death of these good Christian Kings
their respective Kingdoms immediately plunged back into paganism. Yet in both cases these lands would again be
restored to the faith by later Christian rulers.
All
of the above (not otherwise cited) is related by Saint Bede the Venerable in
what is considered his greatest work: History of the English Church and
People.[8]
Bede was a prolific writer in the history of the Catholic Church, and though he
wrote mostly commentaries on Sacred Scripture, because of his aforementioned
work he was given the title “Father of English History” by Pope Leo XIII on
November 13th, 1899 when he declared him a Doctor of the Church.[9] Bede was a monk in England living under the
rule of Saint Benedict during the late 7th Century and well into the
early 8th Century after Christ.[10]
He never left the confines of the shores of Britain, and thus had to rely on
extant documents available to him at the time for his information of the
outside world.[11]
Warren Carroll also covers this period
of time of the sending of Saint Augustine of Canterbury to England by Pope
Saint Gregory the Great.[12] It
is interesting to note that his treatment of the subject is very similar to
that of Saint Bede, but Carroll does not even refer to the great Father of
English History. Instead he relies principally
upon the work of F. Holmes Dudden[13]
and Margaret Deanesly[14],
both Anglicans. These authors seem to
have been in possession of more information than Bede as Carroll draws from
them a number of details not given by the Saint. One of these details is that the wife of King
Ethelbert, whom Bede does not mention, was the great-granddaughter of King Clovis
of the Franks.[15] It is probable that she had a similar impact
on her husband as did her great-grandmother Saint Clotilda. Another detail mentioned by Carroll, and at
best obscure in Bede, is that when King Ethelbert converted and was baptized: “Augustine
immediately asked Pope Gregory for more priests, knowing that the Church would
now grow very rapidly in England.”[16]
This clearly demonstrates Augustine’s understanding of the great importance of
winning over a ruler in order to win over the people. Finally, while Bede mostly confines himself
to what was going on in England during this time, Carroll gives a much broader
historical context. He also speaks about
the concurrent conversion of the rulers of Spain at the hands of Saint Leander,
and in particular way the staunch orthodoxy of the Merovingian Princess
Ingunthis who married the Gothic Prince of Spain Hermenegild and converted him
to orthodoxy from the Arian heresy in which his country was then steeped.[17]
Hermenegild would eventually be martyred by his own Arian Father, and after his
death his brother Reccared succeeded to the throne.[18] He it was who would secured the official
conversion of Spain to the orthodox Catholic faith and who personally addressed
the 65 Bishops at the Council of Toledo in 589 which permanently sealed the
orthodoxy of Spain and the condemnation of Arianism in that land.[19] Thus both the great Catholic Kingdoms of
Spain and England seem to have been closely connected, if not in some way
brought about, by the conversion of the Eldest Daughter of the Church and her
leaders. Saints Remigius, Augustine, and
Leander performed a powerful work when one considers the vast host of Saints
that would be raised up by God in these great Catholic lands for hundreds of
years after these great men had left this earth to their eternal reward.
When
Ethelbert’s son Eadbald came to the throne he rejected the faith of his father
and banished two Bishops who had been consecrated by Saint Augustine.[20] This
misfortune was soon reversed when, before he too left Britain, Augustine’s
successor Laurentius converted Eadbald and the Church could again grow. The
next King was Edwin who was a heathen but who married the Christian daughter of
King Ethelbert and once he converted he “received wide additions to his realm,
and brought under his sway all the territories inhabited by the Britons, an
achievement unmatched by any previous English King.”[21] During
his reign this Christian King inspired the pagan high priest in his realm to
destroy his own altars and convert to the true faith.[22] When
his nephews succeeded him after his death they both promptly apostatized from
the faith resulting in much suffering for the people of the kingdom.[23]
Both met their end a short time into their reigns and the Kingdom was again
restored to peace by the Christian King Oswald.[24] One
can then see this trend continue through the history of the English nation that
when it has a good Christian ruler the faith flourishes and when the ruler is a
pagan or heretic much damage is done to the faith of the people and the work of
the Church. Sadly this culminated when nearly
a thousand years after Augustine came to England the once Catholic King Henry
VIII broke with the Church and took the entire English nation with him. How we must pray that England will once again
be ruled by a good Catholic ruler and bear the title Island of the Saints
proudly once more.
Collect for the Feast of Saint Edward the
Confessor (Oct. 13th)
Deus, qui beátum regem Eduárdum Confessórem tuum æternitátis
glória coronásti: fac nos, quǽsumus; ita eum venerári in terris, ut cum eo
regnáre póssimus in coelis. Per Dóminum
nostrum Iesum Christum, Fílium tuum, qui tecum vivit et
regnat in unitáte Spiritus Sancti, Deus, per ómnia sǽcula sæculórum. Amen.
O God, Who hast set upon the head of thy blessed Confessor King Edward a
crown of everlasting glory, grant unto us, we beseech thee, so to use our
reverence for him here upon earth, as to make the same a mean whereby to come
to reign with him hereafter in heaven. Through Jesus Christ, thy Son our Lord,
Who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, ever one
God, world without end. Amen.
[1]
Saint Bede
the Venerable, A History of the English Church and People, Trans. Leo
Sherley-Price, (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1955), 40-42.
[2]
Ibid, 44-47.
[3]
Ibid, 50-51.
[4]
Ibid, 66-67.
[5]
Ibid, 68-71.
[6]
Hugh De
Blacam, Saint Patrick: Apostle of Ireland, Ed. Joseph Husslein S.J.
PH.D. (Milwaukee: The Bruce Publishing Company, 1941), 67-8.
[7]
Bede, A
History of the English Church and People, 88-91.
[8]
Fr.
Christopher Rengers O.F.M. Cap., The 33 Doctors of the Church (Rockford:
TAN Books and Publishers, 2000), 220.
[9]
Ibid, 230.
[10]
Ibid, 220-1.
[11]
Ibid, 221.
[12]
W. Carroll,
A History of Christendom, vol. 2, The Building of Christendom
(Front Royal: Christendom College Press, 1987),197-9.
[13]
F. H.
Dudden, Gregory the Great, His Place in History and Thought (New York,
1905, 1967), 2 vols.
[14]
Margaret
Deanesly, Augustine of Canterbury (London, 1964).
[15]
Carroll, The
Building of Christendom, 198.
[16]
Ibid, 198.
[17]
Ibid, 192.
[18]
Ibid, 195.
[19]
Ibid.
[20]
Bede, A
History of the English Church and People, 106-8.
[21]
Ibid, 112.
[22]
Ibid, 124-6.
[23]
Ibid,
138-39.
[24]
Ibid, 139.
