The king was among their first converts. Tho principal of his nobility, as usual, followed that example, moved, as it is related, by many signal miracles, but undoubtedly by the extraordinary zeal of the missionaries, and the pious austerity of their lives. The new religion, by the protection of so respected a prince, who held under his dominion or influence all the countries to the southward of the Humber, spread itself with great rapidity. Paganism, after a faint resistance, everywhere gave way. And, indeed, the chief difficulties which Christianity had to encounter did not arise so much from the struggles of opposite religious prejudices as from the gross and licentious manners of a barbarous people. One of the Saxon princes expelled the Christians from his territory because the priest refused to give him some of that white bread which he saw distributed to his congregation. It is probable that the order of Druids either did not at all subsist amongst the Anglo-Saxons, or that at this time it had declined not a little from its ancient authority and reputation; else it is not easy to conceive how they admitted so readily a new system, which at one stroke cut off from their character its whole importance. We even find some chiefs of the Pagan priesthood amongst the foremost in submitting to the new doctrine. On the first preaching of the Gospel in Northumberland, the heathen pontiff of that territory immediately mounted a horse, which to those of his order was unlawful, and, breaking into the sacred inclosure, hewed to pieces the idol he had so long served.[29]