S. Ethelbert was son and successor of Irmenric, king of Kent, and great grandson of Hengist, the first of the Saxon conquerors of Britain. He reigned for thirty-six years over the oldest kingdom of the Heptarchy--that of Kent--and gained over all the other Saxon kings and princes, even to the confines of Northumbria, that kind of military supremacy which was attached to the title of Bretwalda, or temporary chief of the Saxon Confederation. His wife was Bertha, daughter of Charibert, son of Clovis, king of France; a Christian princess, who brought over with her as chaplain, one Lethard or Liudhard, of Senlis, a bishop, who exercised his ministry in a church formerly built, in Roman times, near the walls of Canterbury, and dedicated to S. Martin. Tradition records the gentle and lovable virtues of queen Bertha, but little is known of her life; she has left but a brief and uncertain illumination on those distant and dark horizons, over which she sits like a star, the herald of the sun. Her example and the virtues of Liudhard probably did much to break up the ground in the heart of Ethelbert; but his conversion was reserved for the coming and preaching of S. Augustine and his companions, the missioners sent from Rome by Gregory the Great. These landed first in the Isle of Thanet, which joins close to the east part of Kent, and thence they sent a message to king Ethelbert, saying why they had come into his land. The king sent word back to them to stay in the isle till he fully made up his mind how to treat them; and he gave orders that they should be well taken care of in the meanwhile. After some days he came himself into the isle, and bade them come and tell him what they had to say. He sat under an oak, and received them in the open air, for he would not meet them in a house, as he thought they might be wizards, and they might use some charm or spell, which, according to the superstition of the time, was held to be powerless out of doors. So they came, carrying a silver cross, and a picture of Our Lord painted on a wooden panel, chanting in procession the litanies in use at Rome, in the solemn and touching strains which they had learnt from Gregory, their spiritual father, and the father of religious music. At their head marched Augustine, whose lofty stature and patrician presence attracted every eye, for, like Saul, "he was taller than any of the people from his shoulders and upwards."[67] The king, surrounded by a great number of his followers, received them graciously, and made them sit down before him. After having listened to the address which they delivered to him and to the assembly, he gave them a loyal, sincere, and, as we should say in these days, truly liberal answer. "You make fair speeches and promises," he said, "but all this is to me new and uncertain. I cannot all at once put faith in what you tell me, and abandon all that I, with my whole nation, have for so long a time held sacred. But since you have come from so far