A Dream of England (or The Chronicles of Britannia)

A dream of England, beauteous fair, of all those who lived and died there

Part the Sixth:

Gregory and the Pretty Children

The Romans had failed to make Britons Romans,
though they learned many things at their invaders’ hands,
soon, through many battles, the Romans were gone
and the natives never forgot they were Britons.
The Saxon invasion was a different thing,
before long they’d killed the last British king.
Survivors, they all fled to Cornwall and Wales,
no more Britons we’ll hear in this lengthy tale
but Saxons, now rulers in their many tribes
called “Jutes” and “Angles” and others besides,
they did not settle quiet in the land
and soon seven different kingdoms did stand;
‘till Egbert rose up to become overlord
of all the seven and this king’s first word,
himself being ‘Angle’, was, to his tribe’s name
the name of the country would henceforth be changed
from “Briton” to “Angleland”, this he did say
(or “England” the name which we know it today).
The Saxons were pagan and soon they unleashed
a reign of terror on the churches and priests.
Except in the mountains, no Christian remained
and the land of England became pagan again.
But the Lord would not have it long stay this way
for, in far-off Rome, in the market one day
a man saw some children sold in slavery
and their plight moved this Roman, called Gregory;
they were fair of face, with cheeks of rosy hue,
their hair gold and their eyes bright, merry and blue.
“Where are these children from?” he asked the salesman:
“They’re Angles from Briton, and no one can tame them!”
“Angles?” he placed both his hands on their heads,
“No, Angels! I’ll buy them all”, Gregory said.
When he found they were pagans he took them all home,
taught them to be Christians, loved them as his own;
he wanted to take them and visit England
but commitments at Rome made him forgo his plan.
Years later, when he was Bishop of Rome
although he could not go himself to the home
of the pretty children, he could now send a man
called Augustine to preach Christ to all England.
He took with him forty fine, good men and true
(they say that the children, now adults, went too).
In those days it was a long, hard way to travel
and Augustine’s courage began to unravel;
a furious Gregory said, “You must be brave
for Christ gave his life Angles also to save!”
They reached England in five-nine-seven AD
and the fierce, lawless Saxons treated them kindly,
much to their surprise, everywhere they went;
soon they stood before Ethelbert, the king of Kent.
Though pagan, he’d married a Christian wife,
soon he and all of his people were baptized.
Augustine spread out from his start in Kent
converting the Saxons wherever he went.
They smashed al their idols and to Christ they turned,
taking a lead from Coifi, their temple they burned.
It took quite a time, it was not overnight,
Augustine and his followers had a long fight
‘till a great conversion Augustine had wrought
but not all lived quite in the way they were taught.
Now English kings rose, like the Britons before,
and tried to rule well and to pass good, just law
but a new enemy rose on the scene,
wild and fierce, just as the Saxons had been.
Would this, now stable, land be conquered again,
and what threat was posed by those known as “Norsemen”?

TO BE CONTINUED…

NEXT ON “A DREAM OF ENGLAND”:
Ethelwulf, Ethelred, Alfred and the wars with the Danes.

NOTE:
Coifi was a devout follower of the pagan Saxon gods all his life but, disillusioned by this path, he was one of the first to publically declare his conversion to Christ by taking a spear, mounting his horse and destroying the great idol the people had worshipped. The people thought that something terrible would happen to him for doing this but, when nothing did (as the idol was not a real god), this gave others the courage to turn to Christ themselves.