About six hundred years after Jesus' birth, a group of Christians living in Italy were sent to a dangerous country to tell the people living there about Jesus. The country was England.

At that time, England was not one country ruled over by one king, but a collection of small kingdoms. The people of England belonged to different tribes, the biggest of which were the Angles, the Saxons and the Jutes. These tribes originally came from Germany and Belgium and had not been settled in England for very long.

The Angles and the Saxons worshipped many different gods, including Woden, the god of warriors, and his wife, Freya, the goddess of marriage. In France, the little group of Italian Christians heard many rumours about the fearsome tribes of England, and so scared were they by what they heard, that they decided to return home. But a letter arrived from Italy, giving them encouragement and granting their leader a special honour. The leader of this little band of Christians was a monk called Augustine. But from now on, the letter said, Augustine was no longer to be a monk, but a bishop.

Spurred on by his promotion, Augustine led his team across the Channel to England. They landed at Ebbsfleet in Kent. There on the beach to meet Augustine and the other Christians was Ethelbert, the King of Kent and the most powerful man in the south of the country. Augustine and the others had feared that the King had come to drive them back to France, but instead, the king welcomed them most graciously. He gave them a house in Canterbury and his permission to tell other people about Jesus.

Augustine and the others were shocked by the king's generosity. But what they didn't know at that time was that they had a secret ally. The king's new wife, Bertha, was a Christian. She had asked Ethelbert to treat Augustine and the others well.

After four years, living and preaching in Kent, Augustine and the other Christians met with considerable success. First, the King and all his court became Christians. Then, on Christmas Day 597, over 10,000 people were baptised.

Augustine had many new churches built in the south of England, most of them over places where the people had previously worshipped other gods. Augustine's most important church remained in Canterbury, and when, he was given power to make other people bishops, Augustine became the first Archbishop of Canterbury.