"Oh," said the monk, "they would be ANGELS instead of ANGLES if they
were only Christians; for they certainly have the faces of angels."

Years after, when that monk was the Pope of Rome, he remembered this
conversation and sent the monk Augustine (Au-gus'-tine) to England
to teach the Christian religion to the savage but angel-faced Angles.
Augustine and the British missionaries converted the Anglo-Saxons
two hundred years before the German Saxons were converted.

Still, though both Angles and Saxons called themselves Christians,
they were seldom at peace; and for more than two hundred years they
frequently fought. Various chiefs tried to make themselves kings;
and at length there came to be no less than seven small kingdoms
in South Britain.

In 784 Egbert claimed to be heir of the kingdom called Wessex;
but the people elected another man and Egbert had to flee for his
life. He went to the court of Charlemagne, and was with the great
king of the Franks in Rome on Christmas Day, 800, when the Pope
placed the crown on Charles' head and proclaimed him emperor.

Soon after this a welcome message came to Egbert. The mind of the
people in Wessex had changed and they had elected him king. So
bidding farewell to Charlemagne, he hurried to England.

Egbert had seen how Charlemagne had compelled the different quarreling
tribes of Germany to yield allegiance to him and how after uniting
his empire he had ruled it well.