The Kentish king AEthelberht found himself hemmed in on every side by English territory; and since conquest over Britons was denied him he sought a new sphere of action in setting his kingdom at the head of the conquerors of the south.

The break up of Wessex no doubt aided his attempt; but we know little of the causes or events which brought about his success.

We know only that the supremacy of the Kentish king was owned at last by the English peoples of the east and centre of Britain.

But it was not by her political action that Kent was in the end to further the creation of a single England; for the lordship which AEthelberht built up was doomed to fall for ever with his death, and yet his death left Kent the centre of a national union far wider as it was far more enduring than the petty lordship which stretched over Eastern Britain.

Only three or four years after Gregory had pitied the English slaves in the market-place of Rome, he found himself as Bishop of the Imperial City in a position to carry out his dream of winning Britain to the faith; and an opening was given him by AEthelberht's marriage with Bertha, a daughter of the Frankish king Charibert of Paris.