Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Kent: but they were involved in equal difficulties. After the death of Bertha, Ethelbert had married a second wife. His son Eadbald was captivated with her youth and beauty; at his accession to the throne he took her to his bed ; and when the missionaries ventured to remonstrate, abandoned a religion which forbade the gratification of his passion. Disheartened by so many misfortunes, Mellitus, with Justus of Rochester, retired into Gaul (27). Laurentius, the successor of St Augustine, had determined to follow their example ; but spent the night before his intended departure in the church of St Peter. At break of day he repaired to the palace; dis- covered to the king the marks of stripes on his shoulders j and assured him, that they had been inflicted by the hands of the apostle, as the reward of his cowardice. Eadbald was astonished and confounded. He expressed his willingness to remove the causes of discontent; dismissed his father's widow from his bed ; and recalled the fugitive bishops. His subsequent conduct proved the sincerity of his conversion : and christianity, supported by his influence, soon assumed an ascendancy which it ever after maintained (28). From the south, the knowledge of the gospel passed to the most northern of the Saxon nations. Edwin, the powerful king of Northumbria, had asked and obtained the hand of Edilberga, the daughter of Ethelbert: but the zeal of her brother had stipulated that she should enjoy the free exercise of her religion, and had extorted from the impatient suitor a promise, that he would im- (27) Ann. G2J. Both Justus and Mellitus became afterwards archbishops of Canterbury. X28) Id. l. ii. c. e. partially examine the credibility of the christian faith. With these conditions Edwin complied, and alternately consulted the Saxon ...