597, the year that Abbot Columba died far away in Iona, a party of monks and priests set out from Rome on the Pope’s command; they were bound for the Atlantic Isles under the leadership of a monk from Gregory’s monastery of St Andrew, called Augustine. There is a certain air of haste and improvisation about this mission to the Anglo-Saxons, which suggests that Pope Gregory may have been fired by a sudden enthusiasm for England.
