ÆTHELBERHT, King of Kent, saint. — The first Christian king in England, by 593 he had become head of the Confederation of Anglo-Saxon kingdoms formed on the island. His wife BERTHA, a Christian, had prepared him to welcome the great missionary expedition of monks, led by St AUGUSTINE, promoted by Gregory the Great. To them Æthelberht granted freedom of action and gave them a house in Durovernum (Canterbury) and the church of St MARTIN. On the vigil of Pentecost in 597 he himself, with many of his subjects, received baptism.
At the news of the event, conveyed to him by Augustine, Gregory the Great replied by comparing Æthelberht to BERTHA, to Constantine and to St HELEN (Jaffé-Wattenbach, 1826). He founded the church of St PAUL in London and endowed that of St ANDREW with rich gifts. He left a code of laws, separate from the penal ones, from which there shines through a singular piety in a barbaric and rough soul. He died after 56 years of reign, in 616, and was buried beside his wife in the abbey church of SS PETER and PAUL in Canterbury, where Augustine now lay.