After such deeds Caedwalla still reigned over the kingdom of Sussex and his other kingdoms, nor did he by speech or manner give the rich or poor about him to understand whether anything was passing in his heart. But while they sang Mass in the cathedral of Selsey and while still the new-comers came (now more rarely, for nearly all were enrolled): while the new-comers came, I say, in their last numbers from the remotest parts of the forest ridge, and from the loneliest combes of the Downs to hear of Christ and his cross and his resurrection and the salvation of men, Caedwalla sat in Chichester and consulted his own heart only and was a pagan King. No one else you may say in all the land so kept himself apart. His youth had been thus spent and he thus ruled, when as his thirtieth year approached he gave forth a decision to his nobles and to his earls and to the Welsh-speaking men and to the seafaring men and to the priests and to all his people. He said: "I will take ship and I will go over the sea to Rome, where I may worship at the tombs of the blessed Apostles, and there I will be baptized. But since I am a king no one but the Pope shall baptize me. I will do penance for my sins. I will lift my eyes to things worthy of a man. I will put behind me what was dear to me, and I will accept that which is to come." And as they could not alter Caedwalla in any of his previous decisions, so they could not alter him in this. But his people gave gladly for the furnishing of his journey, and all the sheep of the Downs and their fleece, and all the wheat in the clay steadings of the Weald, and the little vineyards in the priests' gardens that looked towards the sea, and the fishermen, and every sort in Sussex that sail or plough or clip or tend sheep or reap or forge iron at the hammer ponds, gave of what they had to King Caedwalla, so that he went forth with a good retinue and many provisions upon his journey to the tombs of the Apostles. When King Caedwalla came to Rome the Pope received him and said: "I hear that you would be instructed in the Faith." To which King Caedwalla answered that such was his desire, and that he would crave baptism at the hands of the said Pope. And meanwhile Caedwalla took up good lodgings in Rome, gave money to the poor, and showed himself abroad as one who had come from the ends of the earth, that is, from the kingdom of Sussex, which in those days was not yet famous. Caedwalla, now being thirty years old and having learnt what one should learn in order to receive baptism, was baptized, and they put a white robe on him which he was to wear for certain days. King Caedwalla, when he was thus made one with the unity of Christian men, was very glad. But he also said that before he had lost that white robe so given him, death would come and take him (though he was a young man and a warrior), and that not in battle. He was certain it was so.