Trade went on with the kindred Saxon coast of the Frankish kingdom, and AEthelberht, the ambitious Kentish king, and over-lord of all England south of the Humber, had even married Bercta, a daughter of the Frankish king of Paris.

Bercta was of course a Christian, and she brought her own Frankish chaplain, who officiated in the old Roman church of St.Martin, at Canterbury.

But Gregory's mission was on a far larger scale.

Augustine, prior of the monastery on the Coelian Hill, was sent with forty monks to convert the heathen English.

They landed in Thanet, in 597, with all the pomp of Roman civilisation and ecclesiastical symbolism.