Osfrith were slain. Penda and Cadwalla "fared thence, and undid all
Northumbria." The country was once more divided into Deira and Bernicia,
and two heathen rulers succeeded to the northern kingdom. Paulinus,
taking Æthelburh, the widow of Eadwine, went by sea to Kent, where
Honorius, whom he had himself consecrated, received him cordially, and
gave him the vacant see of Rochester. There he remained till his death,
and so for a time ended the Christian mission to York. Penda made the
best of his victory by annexing the Southumbrians, the Middle English,
and the Lindiswaras, as well as by conquering the Severn Valley from the
West Saxons. Henceforth, Mercia stands forth as one of the three leading
Teutonic states in Britain.




CHAPTER X.

ROME AND IONA.


It was not the Roman mission which finally succeeded in converting the
North and the Midlands. That success was due to the Scottish and Pictish
Church. At the end of the sixth century, Columba, an Irish missionary,
crossed over to the solitary rock of Iona, where he established an abbey
on the Irish model, and quickly evangelised the northern Picts. From
Iona, some generations later, went forth the devoted missionaries who
finally converted the northern half of England.

The native churches of the west, cut off from direct intercourse with
the main body of Latin Christendom, had retained certain habits which