The Romans abandoned the island of Britain in 409 for ever. About 450 the pagan kinsmen of the Franks, namely the Angles, Saxons, Jutes, and Frisians, crossed to Britain and there found the Christian Church already planted.[235:2] They drove it back to Wales, Ireland, and Scotland, or crushed it out altogether. The Christian Celts, who were thus treated, made no effort at first to convert their heathen conquerors.[235:3] That was left to missionaries from Rome under the leadership of the monk Augustine. Bede, the venerable Church historian, tells the pious tale of how Gregory the Great, before being made Pope, saw in the slave market of Rome some boys "of a white body and fair countenance" and forthwith became so deeply interested in them and their land that he begged the Pope to send him as missionary to Britain.[235:4] The Romans, it is said, refused to allow him to go, and soon honoured him with the tiara of St. Peter. As Pope, however, he carried out his intention by sending Augustine, a Benedictine abbot, with forty monks and Gallic interpreters and with letters and a library of sacred literature, to England in 596 to begin the work.[235:5] Now it happened that Ethelbert, the King of Kent, had married Bertha, a Christian princess from Paris, who had been permitted to take a Gallic bishop with her to England. Thus the way had been already opened for the favourable reception of the monks under the guidance of Augustine, which led in 597 to the conversion of Ethelbert at Canterbury, and with him nominally the whole kingdom of Kent. At the first Christmas festival Ethelbert and 10,000 of his subjects were baptised. Thus Roman Christianity became at once the established state Church and "everywhere the bishop's throne was set up side by side with the king's."[236:1] Augustine, as a reward for his successful services, was soon made the first archbishop of England[236:2] and proceeded to organise the Church by sending to Rome for more helpers, by appointing bishops and priests to particular fields of labour, by purifying pagan temples and dedicating them to Christian services, and by repairing and building Christian churches and monasteries. As a result of the sincere, practical measures adopted by Augustine, thousands were soon won to the new faith and Christianity was permanently replanted in the British Islands. The work, so well begun, was continued until Sussex, the last kingdom of the heptarchy, in 604, embraced the popular religion. Pope Gregory the Great took a keen interest in this grand triumph and made it contribute to the glory of the Roman Church.[236:3]