than that which he has left on record, when he says, "To the Roman Church, by reason of its more powerful principality, it is necessary that every Church, that is to say, the faithful in every place, should have recourse,6 since in it the universal tradition received from the Apostles is safely preserved."7

The good Pope Eleutherius was in raptures of joy on receiving the message of the British king, and caused Gloria in excelsis to be chanted in commemoration of the happy event. He commissioned two holy Bishops, by name Fugatius and Damianus, to accompany SS. Elvanus and Medwinus back to Britain; and it is added by some writers, that he raised St. Elvanus himself to the Episcopal dignity. He is related, likewise, to have sent the necessary instructions for the ordering of the British Church, but to have declined complying with the king's request for a copy of the Roman laws, on the ground that they had no direct bearing upon Christian institutions.

When the holy legates arrived in Britain, the king, queen, and all their household, were immediately baptized. The name of the queen has not come down to us; but a sister of Lucius, called Emerita, is said to have attained the honours of a Saint.

SS. Fugatius and Damianus, having preached the Word of Life to the king and his family, next proceeded into the several parts of Britain. At the end of three years, they returned to Rome, reported the good success of their mission, and obtained from the holy Father a confirmation of their acts. They afterwards returned to Britain, and renewed their Apostolic travels,

6 Convenire.

7 S. Iren. cont. Hæres. lib. iii. c. 3.

8 See Ussher's Primord. Eccl. 10.

in the course of which they are said to have visited the Isle of Avallonia, the seat of the famous Monastery of Glastonbury, which had then become a covert for wild beasts.9 There they discovered, by Divine guidance, the ancient oratory dedicated to our Lord, in honour of His Blessed Mother, in which they continually celebrated the Divine praises. It is also related of the same holy men, that they founded at Avallonia two other chapels, one under the title of the Blessed Apostles SS. Peter and Paul, the other under that of St. Michael the Archangel. It is added, that they established a succession of twelve devout persons, in memory of the twelve companions of St. Joseph. Whether they died at Avallonia is doubtful; but a very authentic tradition records that they continued there nine years. Harpsfield places the scene of their deaths in South Wales, near the city of Llandaff, where a church was afterwards built under their patronage. Their names occur on May 24 in the English Martyrologies, where they are said to have died in the year 191. About the same time, king Lucius was called away from an earthly to a heavenly crown; having occupied, according to a very ancient belief, some of the latter years of his life in spreading the Christian faith among the nations of Germany and Switzerland.

It cannot be doubted, that the conversion of this good king, St. Lucius, was the beginning of a new era in the Church of Britain, and that very many of his subjects were moved by his example to embrace the Faith. It is equally certain, that the Lord raised up many devoted servants to work in this promising field of ministerial labour; true though it also is, that their memorial has utterly perished. Of the period between the death of king

9 Capgrave in Vitâ S. Josephi.

C

Lucius and the martyrdom of St. Alban, there is all but a total dearth of trustworthy information; but we gather from the testimony of foreign writers, as well as from that of our own sainted historians Gildas and Bede, that the Church of Britain was in a flourishing state during this interval, consisting of almost a century. And now the British Church is said to have been placed under the government of twenty-eight Bishops, and three Metropolitans, the chief see being founded in London. Bishop Stillingfleet, indeed, gives reasons which appear satisfactory, for believing that there was a succession of Bishops in the British Church from the first, though he considers that, under king Lucius, steps were taken for the increase and consolidation of the Episcopate. If there were Bishops in Britain when St. Lucius sent his embassy to Rome, it is all the more remarkable that he should have resorted to a foreign quarter for aid and counsel. And even if there were no Bishops in this country, he need not, as we have seen, have gone so far as Rome to supply the want. Let us but be content to follow the Church of all ages in ascribing a right of precedence to the See of the Apostles, and the conduct of king Lucius becomes perfectly intelligible, without the necessity of supposing any flaw in the succession of the ancient British Episcopate, or involving any disparagement of the claims of other European prelates.

CHAPTER III.

THE BRITISH CHURCH.

ST. ALBAN AND THE FRUITS OF

HIS MARTYRDOM.

A.D. 192-A.D. 359.

AFTER king Lucius, we lose sight of the stream of British Church history for nearly a century, when it reappears in the age of St. Alban and his companions, and then flows on more evenly and steadily till the time of the Saxon invasion. And, just as the reappearance of a stream at intervals is a proof that its course has been all the while continuous, though hidden, do passages in the history of the ancient British Church, such as the Martyrdom of St. Alban, betoken the presence of a real, though latent, faith, in the ages preceding. The heroic virtue of Alban and Amphibalus, Aaron and Julius, and of those " very many others, whose souls, in the midst of divers tortures and unprecedented mangling of the limbs, were removed in the very crisis of their agony to the joys of the supernal city," was no sudden outbreak of enthusiasm, no mere happy coincidence, or insulated phenomenon, but had its origin in causes of long standing and wide prevalence, and so sheds a lustre over the period which matured it, as well as over that in which it was displayed.

Our own island, moreover, appears to have enjoyed a profound rest, under the earlier of the persecutions by

1 S. Bede, lib. i. c. 7.

which other Churches within the boundaries of the Roman Empire were visited and desolated. At length, in the reign of Diocletian and his colleague Maximian, it fell under the stroke of heathen rage and malice. The last and fiercest of the onslaughts, which during ten years deluged Christendom with blood, penetrated even into Britain; where, in the words of the holy Gildas, "God, who wills all men to be saved, and calls sinners as well as those that account themselves righteous, was pleased to magnify His mercy among us; and, of His own free goodness, to kindle in this island the brightest of luminaries, even His holy Martyrs; whose places of sepulture and of suffering, had not our citizens for the sins of our nation been robbed of them by the mournful incursion of barbarians, would inspire no little ardour of Divine love into the minds of all beholders; I speak of St. Alban of Verulam, Aaron and Julius, of the city of the Legions, and the rest, of either sex, who, in divers places, maintained their ground in Christ's battle with consummate magnanimity." 3

The Christian heroism of these blessed servants and soldiers of Christ, and especially of our glorious Protomartyr, might well form the subject of distinct biographies. It will be sufficient in this place to give a mere outline of its principal features.

St. Alban was converted to the Christian faith by Amphibalus, a clergyman, whom he had sheltered from his persecutors. Information having been given to the authorities as to the place where Amphibalus lay concealed, search was made for him in Alban's house; upon which his host, putting on his military cloak, submitted to be seized by the officers in his stead. When brought be

2 Caerleon on the Usk. 3 S. Gildas de Excid. Br. § 10.