Of the reign of King Edwin, and how Paulinus, coming to preach the Gospel, first converted his daughter and others to the mysteries of the faith of Christ. [625-626 A.D.]
AT this time the nation of the Northumbrians, that is, the
English tribe dwelling on the north side of the river Humber,
with their king, Edwin, received the Word of faith through the
preaching of Paulinus, of whom we have before spoken. This king,
as an earnest of his reception of the faith, and his share in the
heavenly kingdom, received an increase also of his temporal
realm, for he reduced under his dominion all the parts of Britain
that were provinces either of the English, or of the Britons, a
thing which no English king had ever done before; and he even
subjected to the English the Mevanian islands, as has been said
above. The more important of these, which is to the southward, is
the larger in extent, and more fruitful, containing nine hundred
and sixty families, according to the English computation; the
other contains above three hundred.
The occasion of this nation's reception of the faith was the
alliance by marriage of their aforesaid king with the kings of
Kent, for he had taken to wife Ethelberg, otherwise called Tata,
(a term of endearment) daughter to King Ethelbert. When he first
sent ambassadors to ask her in marriage of her brother Eadbald,
who then reigned in Kent, he received the answer, "That it
was not lawful to give a Christian maiden in marriage to a pagan
husband, lest the faith and the mysteries of the heavenly King
should be profaned by her union with a king that was altogether a
stranger to the worship of the true God." This answer being
brought to Edwin by his messengers, he promised that he would in
no manner act in opposition to the Christian faith, which the
maiden professed; but would give leave to her, and all that went
with her, men and women, bishops and clergy, to follow their
faith and worship after the custom of the Christians. Nor did he
refuse to accept that religion himself, if, being examined by
wise men, it should be found more holy and more worthy of God.
So the maiden was promised, and sent to Edwin, and in accordance
with the agreement, Paulinus, a man beloved of God, was ordained
bishop, to go with her, and by daily exhortations, and
celebrating the heavenly Mysteries, to confirm her, and her
company, lest they should be corrupted by intercourse with the
pagans. Paulinus was ordained bishop by the Archbishop Justus, on
the 21st day of July, in the year of our Lord 625, and so came to
King Edwin with the aforesaid maiden as an attendant on their
union in the flesh. But his mind was wholly bent upon calling the
nation to which he was sent to the knowledge of truth; according
to the words of the Apostle, "To espouse her to the one true
Husband, that he might present her as a chaste virgin to
Christ."' Being come into that province, he laboured much,
not only to retain those that went with him, by the help of God,
that they should not abandon the faith, but, if haply he might,
to convert some of the pagans to the grace of the faith by his
preaching. But, as the Apostle says, though he laboured long in
the Word, "The god of this world blinded the minds of them
that believed not, lest the light of the glorious Gospel of
Christ should shine unto them."
The next year there came into the province one called Eumer, sent
by the king of the West-Saxons, whose name was Cuichelm,to lie in
wait for King Edwin, in hopes at once to deprive him of his
kingdom and his life. He had a two-edged dagger, dipped in
poison, to the end that, if the wound inflicted by the weapon did
not avail to kill the king, it might be aided by the deadly
venom. He came to the king on the first day of the Easter
festival,' at the river Derwent, where there was then a royal
township, and being admitted as if to deliver a message from his
master, whilst unfolding in cunning words his pretended embassy,
he startled up on a sudden, and unsheathing the dagger under his
garment, assaulted the king. When Lilla, the king's most devoted
servant, saw this, having no buckler at hand to protect the king
from death, he at once interposed his own body to receive the
blow; but the enemy struck home with such force, that he wounded
the king through the body of the slaughtered thegn. Being then
attacked on all sides with swords, in the confusion he also slew
impiously with his dagger another of the thegns, whose name was
Forthhere.
On that same holy Easter night, the queen had brought forth to
the king a daughter, called Eanfled. The king, in the presence of
Bishop Paulinus, gave thanks to his gods for the birth of his
daughter; and the bishop, on his part, began to give thanks to
Christ, and to tell the king, that by his prayers to Him he had
obtained that the queen should bring forth the child in safety,
and without grievous pain. The king, delighted with his words,
promised, that if God would grant him life and victory over the
king by whom the murderer who had wounded him had been sent, he
would renounce his idols, and serve Christ; and as a pledge that
he would perform his promise, he delivered up that same daughter
to Bishop Paulinus, to be consecrated to Christ. She was the
first to be baptized of the nation of the Northumbrians, and she
received Baptism on the holy day of Pentecost, along with eleven
others of her house. At that time, the king, being recovered of
the wound which he had received, raised an army and marched
against the nation of the West-Saxons; and engaging in war,
either slew or received in surrender all those of whom he learned
that they had conspired to murder him. So he returned victorious
into his own country, but he would not immediately and
unadvisedly embrace the mysteries of the Christian faith, though
he no longer worshipped idols, ever since he made the promise
that he would serve Christ; but first took heed earnestly to be
instructed at leisure by the venerable Paulinus, in the knowledge
of faith, and to confer with such as he knew to be the wisest of
his chief men, inquiring what they thought was fittest to be done
in that case. And being a man of great natural sagacity, he often
sat alone by himself a long time in silence, deliberating in the
depths of his heart how he should proceed, and to which religion
he should adhere.