Strange would it have been had the maxims of law or rules of policy which these men brought with them, been different from those which prevailed in the place from which they came. Roman feelings, Roman views and modes of judging, the traditions of the empire and the city, the legislation of the emperors and the popes,—these were their sources both of opinion and action. The predominance of the kings must have appeared to them natural and salutary; the subordination of all men to their appointed rulers was even one of the doctrines of Christianity itself, as taught by the great apostle of the gentiles, and recommended by the example of the Saviour. But the consolidation and advancement of the royal authority, if they could only form a secure alliance with it, could not but favour their great object of spreading the Gospel among populations otherwise dispersed and inaccessible: hence it seems probable that all their efforts would be directed to the end which circumstances already favoured, and that the whole spiritual and temporal influence of the clergy would be thrown into the scale of monarchy. Moreover the clergy supplied a new point of approach between our own and foreign courts: to say nothing of Rome, communication with which soon became close and frequent, very shortly after their establishment here, we find an increased and increasing intercourse between our kings and those of Gaul; and this again offered an opportunity of becoming familiar with the views and opinions which had flowed, as it were, from the imperial city into the richest and happiest of her provinces. The strict Teutonic law of wergyld, they perhaps could not prevail to change, and to the last, the king, like every other man, continued to have his price; but the power of the clergy is manifest even in the very first article of Æðelberht’s law, and to it we in all probability owe the ultimate affixing of the penalty of death to the crime of high-treason,—a marvellous departure from the ancient rule. Taking all the facts of the case into account, we cannot but believe that the introduction of Christianity, which not only taught the necessity of obedience to lawful authority, but accustomed men to a more central and combined exercise of authority through the very spectacle of the episcopal system itself, tended in no slight degree to perpetuate the new order which was gradually undermining and superseding the old Mark-organization, and thus finally brought England into the royal circle of European families[26]. ----- Footnote 26: Æðelberht of Kent married a Frankish princess, so did Æðelwulf of Wessex. Offa of Mercia was engaged in negotiations for a nuptial alliance with the house of Charlemagne, and several Anglosaxon ladies of royal blood found husbands among the sovereign families of the Continent. -----