Some difficulties would be solved if we could believe the tale about Lucius, a British King, having requested Eleutherius, Bishop of Rome from 171 to 185, to send someone to teach his people Christianity. This legend is recorded by Bede, partly confirmed by Nennius, and accepted by William of Malmesbury. And the name of Lucius has been variously associated with Winchester, Gloucester, Llandaff, St. Peter's Cornhill, St. Martin's Church, St. Mary's Church in Dover Castle, and even the church on the site of Canterbury Cathedral. The story probably owed its origin to a note in _Catalogus Pontificum Romanorum_, but it does not occur in the earlier catalogue written about 353, and was added to it nearly two hundred years later, with the object apparently of connecting the primitive growth of Christianity in Britain with the See of Rome. Though this ancient story cannot be considered as historical, it is not altogether impossible that it had some foundation in an application from a British prince to receive instruction in Christianity about the end of the second century: and this would give point to the statement of Tertullian (in 208) that "the kingdom and name of Christ were venerated in districts of Britain not yet reached by the Romans." There is much force in the conclusion arrived at by Bishop Browne, that, "with Gaul so close at hand, its people so near of kin, its government so identical with theirs, the Britons would learn Christianity from, and through, Gaul," to whose church ours should occupy the position of a younger sister. At the same time, this fact must be considered--viz. that the earliest bishops mentioned as having attended the Council of Aries are anterior in point of time to the dated bishops in a great majority of the dioceses of Gaul adjacent to this island, so that we should not too readily abandon the possible belief that there was an independent church in Britain, though we know not _when_ or _by whom_ it was founded.