of Penda the pagan over Edwin the Christian, A.D. 633. St.
Paulinus, its local Roman apostle, was driven permanently from his
newly founded churches. Meanwhile Oswald and his brother Edwith
sought refuge among the Irish monks of lona, and received baptism at
their hands. Edwith died and Oswald became heir to the throne. A
battle was fought. The day before he met the pagan army, between the
Tyne and the Solway, Oswald beheld St. Columcille in vision saying to
him: "Be strong and of good faith; I will be with thee." The result
of this vision of the abbot of Iona was that a considerable part of
England received the true faith. Oswald was victorious; he united the
kingdoms of Deira and Bernicia, and became overlord of practically
all England, with the exception of Kent. There was evangelization to
be done, and St. Oswald turned to Iona. In response to his appeal,
the Irish bishop, St. Aidan, was sent with several companions. They
were established on the island of Lindisfarne, in sight of the royal
residence at Bamborough. These monks labored in union with, and even
seemed to exceed in zeal, the Roman missionaries in the south under
St. Augustine. However great the enthusiasm they had displayed for
conversions in Iona, they displayed still greater on the desolate
isle of Lindisfarne. In the first instance St. Aidan and his monks
evangelized Northumbria. Want of facility in preaching in the
Anglo-Saxon tongue was at first an obstacle, but it was speedily
overcome, for king Oswald himself, who knew both Gaelic and English,
came forward and acted as interpreter.

When St. Aidan died in 651, Iona sent St. Finan, another Irish
bishop, to succeed him. Finan spread the faith beyond the borders of
Northumbria and succeeded so well that he himself baptized Penda,
king of the Mid-Angles, and Sigebert, king of the East Saxons. Diuma
and Cellach, Irish monks, assisted by three Anglo-Saxon disciples of
St. Aidan, consolidated the mission to the Mercians.

ANGLIA: While Christianity was thus being restored in Northumbria,
other Irish apostles were teaching it in East Anglia. St. Fursey,
accompanied by his brother St. Foillan and St. Ultan and the priests
Gobham and Dicuil, landed in England in 633, and began to labor in
the eastern portions of Anglia. In his monastery at Burghcastle, in
Suffolk, the convert king Sigebert made his monastic profession, and
in the same house many heavenly visions were vouchsafed to its
founder.

The Sou