ot fallen. Most difficult of
access in the then state of land and water, of marsh and mud, whether
from north or south or east or west, it held out to the last. The earliest
date that can be assigned to its fall is about the year 568, and a date so
early as that is only given to account for Ethelbert's being able to take
his army from Kent to Wimbledon without interruption from London. But for
that, and there may be other explanations of it, it is quite possible to
put the taking of London by the East Saxons a few years later. But it is
not necessary for our purpose. The date of the flight of Theonus has been
said to be 586. It is probable that this is about the date of Ethelbert's
vigorous action northwards, by which he made himself over-lord of his East
Saxon neighbours and of London their most recent conquest, which they
appear not to have occupied for some years after its fall. The political
and administrative changes, due to this expansion of the power of Kent,
may well have made ruined London no longer a possible place of residence,
and of work, for a Christian Briton so prominent in position and office as
the Bishop of London must always have been. It seems probable that Matthew
of Westminster was not far wrong when he wrote that in 586 Theonus took
with him the relics of the saints, and such of the ordained clergy as had
survived the perils, and retired to Wales. Others, he says, fled further,
to the continental Britain. Thadioc of York, he adds, went at the same
time. In some parts, as for instance about Glastonbury, the British
Christians remained undisturbed by the English for sixty or seventy years
longer[32].

A year or two ago, when we set up the list of Bishops of London in the
south aisle here, there was at first an inclination in some quarters to
criticise the decision at which we arrived as to the bishops of the
British period. But the explanations kindly given by those who approved
our action soon put a stop to that. There is a list of Archbishops of
London before Augustine's time, beginning about the year 180 and ending
with Theonus, whose date may be put about 580. In those four centuries,
sixteen names are given, a number clearly insufficient for 400 years. The
names are specially insufficient in the later part of the time, only four
being given between 314 and 580. This is rather in favour of the four
names being real; for it is evident that if people were inventing names,
they might as well have i