Then [it] was after many days that the King came to the isle, and ordered to make a seat for him out [of doors], and ordered Augustine with his fellows to come to his speech (a conference).  He guarded himself lest they should go into any house to him; he used the old greeting, in case they had any magic whereby they should overcome and deceive him.  But they came endowed—­not with devil-craft, but with divine might.  They bore Christ’s rood-token—­a silvern cross of Christ and a likeness of the Lord Jesus colored and delineated on a board; and were crying the names of holy men; and singing prayers together, made supplication to the Lord for the everlasting health of themselves and of those to whom they come.

Then the King bade them sit, and they did so; and they soon preached and taught the word of life to him, together with all his peers who were there present.  Then answered the King, and thus said:  Fair words and promises are these which ye have brought and say to us; but because they are new and unknown, we cannot yet agree that we should forsake the things which we for a long time, with all the English nation, have held.

But because ye have come hither as pilgrims from afar, and since it seems and is evident to me that ye wished to communicate to us also the things which ye believed true and best, we will not therefore be heavy to you, but will kindly receive you in hospitality, and give you a livelihood, and supply your needs.  Nor will we hinder you from joining and adding to the religion of your belief all whom you can through your lore.

Then the King gave them a dwelling and a place in Canterbury, which was the chief city of all his kingdom, and as he had promised to give them a livelihood and their worldly needs, he likewise gave them leave that they might preach and teach the Christian faith.  It is said that when they went and drew nigh to the city, as their custom was, with Christ’s holy cross, and with the likeness of the great King our Lord Jesus Christ, they sung with a harmonious voice this Litany and Antiphony:  Deprecamur te, etc.  “We beseech thee, Lord, in all thy mercy, that thy fury and thy wrath be taken off from this city and [from] thy holy house, because we have sinned.  Alleluia.”

Then it was soon after they had entered into the dwelling place which had been granted to them in the royal city, when they began to imitate the apostolic life of the primitive church—­that is, served the Lord in constant prayers, and waking and fasting, and preached and taught God’s word to whom they might, and slighted all things of this world as foreign; but those things only which were seen [to be] needful for their livelihood they received from those whom they taught; according to that which they taught, they [themselves] through everything lived; and they had a ready mind to suffer adversity, yea likewise death [it] self, for the truth which they preached and taught.  Then was no delay that many believed and were baptized.  They also wondered at the simplicity of [their] harmless life and the sweetness of their heavenly lore.