Ethelbert (1) I. (properly Aethelberht or Aethelbriht; Bede, Aedilberct), king of Kent, son of Irminric, and great-grandson of Oeric, surnamed Oisc, the son of Hengist, succeeded to the kingdom of the Kentishmen as the heir of the "Aescingas" in 560 (the date, 565, in the Chronicle is inconsistent with Bede's reckoning given below). Some years after his accession he provoked a conflict with Ceawlin, the West Saxon king, and Cutha, his brother, was defeated at Wimbledon with the loss of two ealdormen and driven back into Kent (Sax. Chron. .658). Ethelbert had already married Bertha or Berhte, daughter of Charibert, king of Paris, on the understanding that she should be free to practise "the rites of her own Christian religion," under a bishop named Liudhard, chosen by her parents (Bede, i. 25). Ethelbert faithfully observed this compact, but shewed no curiosity about his wife's creed. She and her episcopal chaplain worshipped undisturbed in the old Roman-British church of St. Martin, on a hill E. of Ethelbert's city of Canterbury (Bede, i. 26). Ethelbert succeeded, on the death of Ceawlin in 593, to that pre-eminence among the Saxon and Anglican kings usually described as the Bretwaldadom (see Freeman, Norm. Conq. i. 542). Four years later, in the spring of 597, he was brought face to face with a band of Christian missionaries, headed by Augustine, whom pope Gregory the Great had sent to "bring him the best of all messages, which would ensure to all who received it eternal life and an endless kingdom with the true and living God" (Bede, i. 29). Ethelbert had sent word to the foreigners to remain in the Isle of Thanet, where they had landed, and "supplied them with all necessaries until he should see what to do with them." He soon came into the isle, and sitting down with his "gesiths" or, attendant thanes in the open air (for he feared the effect of spells under a roof) listened attentively to the speech of Augustine. [.] Then he spoke in some such words as Bede has rendered immortal. "Your words and your promises are fair; but seeing they are new and uncertain, I cannot give in to them, and leave the rites which I, with the whole race of the Angles, have so long observed. But since you are strangers who have come from afar, and, as I think I have observed, have desired to make us share in what you believe to be true and thoroughly good, we do not mean to hurt you, but rather shall take care to receive you with kindly hospitality, and to afford you what you need for your support; nor do we forbid you to win over to your faith, by preaching, as many as you can." He gave them a dwelling in Canterbury, N.W. of the present cathedral precinct. They began to make converts, as Bede tells us, through the charm of their preaching, and the still more powerful influence of consistent lives. Shortly afterwards Ethelbert expressed his belief in the truth of those promises which he had described as unheard-of, and was baptized; the time, according to Canterbury tradition, was June 1, the Whitsun-eve of 597 the place, undoubtedly, was St. Martin's. The king proved one of the truest and noblest of royal converts. He built a new palace at Regulbium or Reculver, abandoning his old abode to Augustine, now consecrated as archbishop, and adding the gift of various