Penda’s next intervention in the affairs of his southern neighbours took place in 645, three years after his overthrow of Oswald. Wessex had in the meantime become Christian, chiefly through the preaching of a certain Birinus, who had received his commission from Pope Honorius on his assurance “that he would scatter the seeds of the holy faith in the innermost parts of England whither no teacher had preceded him”. The orthodoxy of Pope Honorius has been sorely attacked on account of his unfortunate vacillations on the subject of the Monothelete heresy, but his evident interest in the conversion of our remote island should be allowed to plead on his behalf as at least one who was zealous for the Christian faith. Birinus discharged the commission entrusted to him with energy and success. We have but little authentic information as to his life, but it seems clear that in respect of the conversion of the kingdoms he held the same relation towards Wessex that Augustine had held to Kent, Paulinus to Deira, and Aidan to Bernicia. The influence of Northumbrian Christianity aided the zealous missionary, and, as we have seen, Oswald of Bernicia stood sponsor for his future father-in-law when in the year 635 Cynegils, the aged King of Wessex, received the sign of baptism. Cwichelm, son of Cynegils and partner of his throne, the chief actor apparently in the murderous attempt upon Edwin of Deira, followed his father’s example in the following year, but died soon after, and when old Cynegils died (641) five years later, he was succeeded by another son, named Cenwalh, who still persisted in heathenism. Soon, however, as Bede remarks, he who refused the offer of the heavenly kingdom, lost his earthly crown. Growing tired of his wife, who was a daughter of Penda, he divorced her, and this repudiation naturally brought upon him the wrath of the Mercian king. Expelled from his kingdom (645) by the victorious arms of Penda, Cenwalh took refuge in East Anglia, at that time the most enthusiastically Christian of all the English kingdoms, with the possible exception of Kent. The persuasions of the East Anglian king, Anna, induced him to make profession of Christianity, and when, after three years’ exile (648), he succeeded in recovering his ancestral kingdom, Cenwalh continued faithful to his new creed, and for the remaining twenty-eight years of his reign he ruled as a Christian king. Thus Wessex, before the seventh century was half way through, accepted the faith of Christ.