Efforts to evangelize the heathen king of Mercia when Edwin was defeated and killed at the battle of Heathfield (633). After the death of Columba members of his brotherthe Picts, hood continued their efforts to evangelize the Picts throughout the north of Scotland. Mission ary settle the far North. The following list of Christian settlements, mostly in Western Scotland, which were the direct outcome of Columba's work in Iona, is given by Haddan and Stubbs-St. Mochonna (or Machar), a bishop, one of Columba's companions in Aberdeen: St. Cormac the navigator, either one of St. Columba's disciples, or the Head of an independent monastery in the Orkneys: St. Ernan in the isle of Himba or Hinba: St. Lugneus Mocumin in the isle of Elena: SS. Baithen and Findchan at Campus Lunge and Artchain in Ethica (Tiree): SS. Cailtan and Diuni near Loch Awe (?): S. Drostan at Aberdour and Deer in Buchan. The foregoing were all disciples of Columba and their work dates from 563 to 597. The following were independent of Columba St. Moluag at Lismore in Argyll, 592 : St. Congan at Lochalsh in N. Argyll, about 600, or possibly in the 8th century: St. Donnan in Eigg, martyred in 617: episcopal abbots at Kingarth in Bute, before 660: St. Maelrubha at Applecross, 671. In the extreme north, and more especially in the northern islands, the heathen Scandinavians, who are frequently referred to as Danes, gradually increased in numbers. Caithness and Sutherland came to form part of the earldom of Orkney under the suzerainty of the king of Norway. The Irish missionaries failed to convert these intruders, but when Christianity spread 1 vol. ii. Pt. i. p. 107: see also Celtic Scotland by Skene ii. pp. 134-138. throughout Scandinavia at the end of the tenth and the beginning of the eleventh century,1 their conversion was gradually effected. ORKNEY AND SHETLAND ISLANDS Columba, The first trustworthy reference to the introduction Visit of of Christianity into the Orkney Islands is the account 565. of a visit made by Columba and some of his companions about 565. A Scottish tradition embodied in the Aberdeen Breviary asserts that Servanus a companion of Palladius was sent by him as a bishop to the Orkneys, but this tradition has no historical basis. The Orkney islands were inhabited by Picts till the ninth century, when the Norse invasions began. The Orkney and Shetland islands passed under the rule of the Norwegian jarls who were driven away from Norway in 872 by Harald Haarfager. monks Shetland According to a statement made by the Irish monk Irish Dicuil, who wrote about 825, it would appear that in the Irish monks or hermits had settled on the Shetland Islands. Islands during the eighth century. These were apparently driven away by the pagan Northmen. The Northmen who afterwards settled in these islands remained as heathen till the time of Olaf Tryggveson of Norway. When Olaf was on his way from Dublin to Norway he put in at the island of South Ronaldsa 1 See p. 469. 2 See De mensura orbis terræ, p. 30, where he speaks of the islands " quæ a septemtrionalibus Britanniæ insulis duorum dierum ac noctium recta navigatione plenis velis assiduo feliciter adiri queunt, in quibus in centum ferme annis eremitæ ex nostra Scotia and finding that the Earl Sigurd Lodvesson had only one fighting ship with him he summoned him on board and explained to him that the time had come for his baptism, stating that the alternative would be his immediate execution, to be followed by the devastation of the islands. Sigurd and his followers were accordingly baptized and he was at the same time compelled to swear allegiance to Olaf and to give his son as a hostage for his good faith. Of any missionary work accomplished in these islands we have no record. Both the Orkney and Shetland islands contain dedications to St. Columba, St. Bridget, St. Ninian and St. Tredwell. Their political union with Scotland was not finally accomplished till 1468, and the Norse language continued to be spoken in the islands till the sixteenth century. CHAPTER IV ENGLAND tion of THE names and nationality of the first missionaries to IntroducBritain are wrapt in an obscurity which we cannot Chrishope to disperse. It is likely that a knowledge of the tianity. faith was first introduced either by Christian soldiers in the Roman army, or by traders, who visited these shores from time to time in order to supply the wants of the legions that were stationed in Britain. An interesting trace of the presence in the north of England of a Syrian, who was evidently a trader and may have been a Christian Jew, was afforded by the discovery in 1878 at South Shields of the gravestone of a British woman who had been married to a Syrian. The last word of the Syriac inscription is of doubtful meaning, but it may perhaps be translated, "May her portion be in life everlasting." Whether this translation can Early inbe maintained or not, the inscription, which dates with from the end of the second, or the beginning of the Syria. third century,1 affords an illustration of the intercourse 1 For an account of the finding of this stone, and a discussion in regard to its meaning, see the "Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archæology" 1879, vol. 6, pt. 2. On the stone, which is 6 ft. by 2 ft. 6 in., is carved the figure of a woman sitting on a chair with flowers in her lap and a basket of fruit at her left side. The tercourse State Clement, that probably existed between Britain and the East as early as the Christian Era, and suggests one of the sources from which Britons may have gained their first knowledge of Christianity. The statement of Clement of Rome1 that St. ments by Paul reached the farthest bounds of the West has been interpreted by some as referring to Britain, but there can be no reasonable doubt that Spain was the country to which the words were intended to refer. and Martial. King The poet Martial, who settled in Rome in A.d. 66, refers to a British lady in Rome named Claudia, who was the wife of Pudens. It is at least possible that these are to be identified with the Claudia and Pudens from whom St. Paul sends greetings to Timothy, but, even if we accept the identification, there is no evidence that Claudia ever returned to Britain or made any direct effort to spread the knowledge of her faith there. Pomponia Græcina, who was accused and acquitted at Rome in 57 A.D. of a "foreign superstition," may perhaps have been a British Christian.1 Bede states that in the time of Eleutherus, bishop of Rome, "Lucius, King of the Britons, sent a letter to him requesting that by his mandate he might be made a Christian. He soon obtained the fulfilment of |