It was not, however, till the following year that he was able to fulfil the desire of his heart, when he selected as the head of a mission to England Augustine, Prior of St. Andrew's Monastery, and charged him with letters to Vigilius, Bishop of Arles, to the Kings Theodoric and Theodebert, and to their grandmother, Queen Brunehaut or Brunichild. In the course of their journey, however, this missionary band was so terrified by the rumours they heard that they became faint-hearted on the road, and despatched Augustine to Rome to beg that they might be recalled. But Gregory would have no withdrawal, and sent him back again with letters of encouragement to his colleagues. So they went on, crossed the sea from Boulogne, and, either in the autumn of 596 or the early spring of 597, landed in England, somewhere in the Isle of Thanet. The King of Kent at this time was _Ethelbert_, who was the most powerful King in England (reckoned by some as the third Bretwalda), and had established his supremacy over the Saxons of Middlesex and Essex, as well as over the English of East Anglia as far north as the Wash: and had driven back the West Saxons when, after an interval of civil feuds, they began again their advance along the Thames, and marched upon London. Ethelbert began to reign in 561. He was believed to be great-grandson of Eric, son of Hengist, a "son of the ash-tree." He had previously, when quite young, been engaged in an encounter with Ceawlin, King of Wessex, and been defeated at Wimbledon. But Ceawlin himself was worsted in 591 by his nephew Cedric at Woodnesbury, in Wiltshire; and Ethelbert had now asserted his supremacy. Unlike most English kings then, and for a long time afterwards, he had married a foreign wife, Bercta, or _Bertha_, daughter of Charibert, one of the kings of the Franks in Gaul, reigning in Paris. Bertha was a Christian, and, as Ethelbert was a heathen, it had been expressly stipulated, either by her father, or by her uncle and guardian Chilperic, King of Soissons, that she should enjoy the free exercise of her religion, and keep her faith inviolate.