have his right, if God it will grant, and each thral and each slave be
set free. And here I give to you in hand each church-land all free;
and I forgive to each widow her lord's testament, and each shall love
other as though they were brothers. And thus we shall in our day put
down Hengest's laws, and him and his heathendom that he hither
brought, and deceived my father through his treacherous crafts;
through his daughter Rowenne he betrayed my father. And my father so
evilly began, that he shunned the Christendom, and loved the heathen
laws too much, which we shall avoid the while that we live."

Then answered Saint Germain—-for such words he was glad:—-"I thank my
Lord, who shaped the daylight, that he such mercy sent to mankind!"
These bishops proceeded over this land, and set it all in God's hand,
and the Christendom they righted, and the folk thereto instructed; and
then soon thereafter they departed to Rome, and said to the Pope, who
was named Romain, how they had done here, restored the Christendom.
And thus it stood a time in the same wise.

Go we yet to Vortiger--of all kings be he most wretched!--he loved
Rowenne, of the heathen race, Hengest's daughter, she seemed to him
well soft. Rowenne bethought her what she might do, how she might
avenge her father and her friends' death. Oft she sent messengers to
Vortimer the king; she sent him treasures of many a kind, of silver
and of gold, the best of any land; she asked his favour, that she
might here dwell with Vortiger his father, and follow his counsels.
The king for his father's request granted to her her prayer, except
that she should do well, and love the Christendom; all that the king
yearned, all she it granted. But alas! that Vortimer was not aware of
her thought; alas! that the good king of her thought knew nothing;
that he knew not the treachery that the wicked woman thought!