Afraid of magic, a king meets the monks from Rome outdoors

ISLE OF THANET, Kent, 597 AD — In 597 AD, nearly forty monks from Rome stepped out of their boats. They landed on an island at the eastern edge of Kent, in England. They had come to tell the English about God, and not one of them could speak English.

Soon they would have to win over Saint Ethelbert, the king of Kent. His power reached north as far as the river Humber. The Humber was the big river between the southern English and the northern ones. The Church later named him a saint, but in 597 AD he was not a Christian.

The monks’ leader was Saint Augustine of Canterbury. He came from a house of monks in Rome. Pope Saint Gregory the Great had started it in his family’s home.

On the road the year before, the monks passed through Gaul, the land the Franks ruled. People there told them that the English hated Christians, and that they tortured and killed anyone who preached to them. The monks were so frightened that they almost turned back. St. Gregory ordered them to keep going. He also told them to take some Franks along as interpreters. The Franks would put the monks’ words into the language of the English.

The island where they landed was called Thanet. It had enough farmland to feed about 600 families. A strip of water about a third of a mile wide cut it off from the rest of Kent.

A silver cross and a painted board

The monks didn’t march straight to the king. They sent him a message through the interpreters. It said they brought joyful news from Rome. Everyone who listened would have joy in heaven forever. They would have a kingdom that would never end, with the living and true God. St. Ethelbert sent back orders for the monks to stay on the island. They would get what they needed while he decided what to do with them.

St. Ethelbert already knew something about Christians. His wife, Queen Bertha, was a Christian from the royal family of the Franks. Her parents had agreed to the marriage only if she could keep practising her faith. A bishop came with Queen Bertha from her own country to help her do that.

A few days later the king crossed over to the island. He sat down in the open air and sent for the monks. He was afraid these strangers might use magic on him. An old belief said that a magician’s spells were dangerous inside a house. There they could trick a man and get the better of him. So St. Ethelbert made sure the monks could not come to him under any roof.

The monks walked toward him with a silver cross held up like a flag. They also carried a picture of Jesus painted on a board. As they came, they sang prayers. They asked God to save their own souls and the souls of the English they had come to teach.

At the king’s order they sat down. Then St. Augustine preached to St. Ethelbert and the men around him. The interpreters turned his words into the king’s language.

When they had finished, St. Ethelbert answered them: “Your words and promises are fair, but because they are new to us, and of uncertain import, I cannot consent to them so far as to forsake that which I have so long observed with the whole English nation.” He wasn’t going to become a Christian that day. But the king said the monks had come a long way as strangers to share what they believed was true. So he would not harm them. St. Ethelbert promised to feed the monks. He would not stop them from preaching or from winning over as many people as they could.

The king gave the monks a house in Canterbury, his chief city. They began meeting in an old church named for Saint Martin. It had been built when the Romans ruled Britain, and Queen Bertha went there to pray.

Some of the people of Kent believed, and before long St. Ethelbert was baptized too. St. Ethelbert forced no one to follow him. The monks had taught him that serving Christ had to be a free choice.