Great Englishwomen: An Historical Reading Book for SchoolsSynge, M. B. (Margaret Bertha)
History
Great Englishwomen: An Historical Reading Book for Schools
Synge, M. B. (Margaret Bertha)
Women -- Great Britain -- Biography
Now Augustine could not preach to all these many people, and he wanted to
make new priests to help him. But this he could not do till he was made a
bishop himself. So he went to an archbishop in the south of France, and
was made a bishop with the Pope's leave. Very soon after he was made
Archbishop of Canterbury, and ever since his time there has been an
Archbishop of Canterbury, who is not only head of all the clergy, but the
highest subject in the queen's realm. Augustine was allowed to ordain
twelve bishops to work under him, and to send to York a very trusty
bishop, who might ordain twelve more.
Now the old Britons or Welsh were, many of them, already Christians, and
Augustine and Ethelbert thought it would be a good plan to make friends
with the Welsh bishops. So they all met under a great oak on the border
land, but unhappily the Welsh bishops could not agree with them; for,
although they were Christians, they did not do everything as Augustine had
been used to do at Rome. So they could not help in preaching to the
heathen, and Augustine went home again. He began to repair an old church
in Canterbury, which is the present Canterbury Cathedral.
He died in 605, and the last time we hear of Queen Bertha is at the
opening of a great monastery dedicated to St. Augustine. The king and
queen and their son took part in the solemn meeting.
About the rest of Queen Bertha's life history is silent. Her death is
supposed to have taken place the same year, but we have no record of the
event. She died as quietly as she had lived, leaving us little more to
know her by than her influence on the times in which she lived. She was
buried in a church named after St. Peter and St. Paul, in a corner called
St. Martin's porch, beside St. Augustine, and twelve years later King
Ethelbert was laid beside her.
MAUDE THE GOOD (1080-1118).
"Maude, the good queen;" "Dame Maude, a kind woman and true;" "The good
queen Maude;" "Queen Maude, that's right well loved England through." When
these are the terms used by the people of her time there is little need to
say more about her character.
Born in 1080, she was christened Edith, but as her name was changed to
Maude or Matilda, on her marriage, out of compliment to the mother of
Henry I., we will call her Maude throughout. Her mother was Margaret, the
gentle Queen of Scotland, her father the well-known Malcolm, of whom
Shakspere has written, a mighty king, but a man who could neither read nor
write.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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