Special Guest Blogger: Saint Bertha of Kent

When Ethelbert proposed to me he asked me if i wanted to help him rule over England and my first reaction was to say hell no, i'm a sophisticated French woman and your people live in huts made from their own dung and they pray to trees and things and would the occasional bath kill them but when he explained that he was only the King of Kent which is a small bit of it on the side, then i agreed as long as i didn't have to do any of that pagan nonsense and could stay Christian and have my own Church to pray in.
I was therefore the first Christian queen of England and hubby gave me a former Roman church in the City of Canterbury although it was only mine for a short while, a visiting Priest from Rome sent by Pope Gregory to bring Christianity to England took it over.
The Anglo-Saxon period followed the Roman withdrawal which left UK with a power vacuum that was filled by warlords with violence, foreign invasion and occupation and Pope Gregory expected me to not only convert Ethelbert but introduce Christianity myself but i said i'm not going into their dung houses, ugh, how disgusting. A commoners doody on the sole of my boot. I shall have to find a patch of grass to wipe it on! Probably get shunned in the Palace, sorry about the pong you fellas, trod in a peasant house and couldn't get rid of the whiff and anyway, the place is swarming with Anglo Saxons with massive battle-axes so i'm not doing it.
So he sent monk Augustine instead and i persuaded hubby to meet him and not immediately shove a sword into his stomach and he gave him the freedom to preach and live in Canterbury, in my church.
I did get the hump but then Pope Gregory wrote to me personally to thank me for my actions in giving him my church and not allowing my husband to gut Augustine as soon as he stepped off the boat and i was all you're very welcome, it was only a Church etc etc.
He did have some clever ideas about how to do it, allowing the Pagans to keep their weird festivals but changing the name and slipping in  Jesus instead of their pagan Gods but they never really noticed, too high on the fumes from their own dung houses probably.
As England went on to become a Christian country, i started off events which fundamentally altered the course of history in the British isles although i have since been canonized as a saint, they still haven't sorted out a feast day for me which is pretty shoddy seeing as i have been dead for over 1500 years.