CHAPTER III.
SERIES OF ANGLO-SAXON KINGS FROM ETHELBERT TO ALFRED: WITH THE INVASION OF THE DANES.
[Sidenote: A.D.

799] The Christian religion, having once taken root in Kent, spread itself with great rapidity throughout all the other Saxon kingdoms in England.
The manners of the Saxons underwent a notable alteration by this change in their religion: their ferocity was much abated; they became more mild and sociable; and their laws began to partake of the softness of their manners, everywhere recommending mercy and a tenderness for Christian blood.

There never was any people who embraced religion with a more fervent zeal than the Anglo-Saxons, nor with more simplicity of spirit.
Their history for a long time shows us a remarkable conflict between their dispositions and their principles.

This conflict produced no medium, because they were absolutely contrary, and both operated with almost equal violence.

Great crimes and extravagant penances, rapine and an entire resignation of worldly goods, rapes and vows of perpetual chastity, succeeded each other in the same persons.