It has been thought that the appeal was made to the British priests, who had retired to the mountainous parts of the island, beyond the reach of the slaying Saxon; but there would be no point in Gregory's remarks to his Gallican correspondents if that were so. And how Gregory was to know that appeals had been made by the English to the Britons for instruction in Christianity, appeals most improbable from the nature of the case, no one can say. On the other hand, he was distinctly in a position to know of such application to the Gauls, for his presbyter Candidus had gone to Gaul, and there was to purchase some pagan English boys of seventeen or eighteen to be brought up in monasteries. This had taken place a very short time before the mission set out, as is clear from Gregory's letter to the Patrician of Gaul. The facts suggest that Luidhard was now quite an old man, and had failed to get any Gallican bishop to take up the work he could no longer carry on. And accordingly, tradition makes him die a month or two after Augustine's arrival. If we look to the language of Bede, we shall see, I think, that Luidhard had become incapable of carrying on his work when Augustine and his companions arrived. For they at once entered upon the use of his church. "There was on the east side of the city a church erected of old in honour of St. Martin[9], when the Romans were still inhabiting Britain, where the queen used to pray. In this church they met at first, to sing, pray, celebrate masses, preach, and baptise; till the king, on his conversion, gave them larger licence, to preach anywhere, and to build and restore churches." Now, quite apart from Luidhard's long and faithful work, we have seen that there was in Canterbury the fabric of a Christian church remaining from the time before the English came; and that there was in Canterbury the fabric of another church, out of which they made their Cathedral church. There was a church in existence at Canterbury when our bishop Mellitus was archbishop there, between 619 and 624, dedicated to the Four Crowned Martyrs of Diocletian's persecution, the Quattro Santi Incoronati, whose church is one of the most interesting in Rome. But this Canterbury church may have been built by the Italians.