<P> The decisive shift to Christianity occurred in 655 when King Penda was slain in the Battle of the Winwaed and Mercia became officially Christian for the first time . The death of Penda also allowed Cenwalh of Wessex to return from exile and return Wessex, another powerful kingdom, to Christianity . After 655, only Sussex and the Isle of Wight remained openly pagan, although Wessex and Essex would later crown pagan kings . In 686 Arwald, the last openly pagan king was slain in battle and from this point on all Anglo - Saxon kings were at least nominally Christian (although there is some confusion about the religion of Caedwalla who ruled Wessex until 688). </P> <P> Lingering paganism among the common population gradually became English folklore . </P> <P> In 595, when Pope Gregory I decided to send a mission to convert the Anglo - Saxons to Christianity, the Kingdom of Kent was ruled by Æthelberht . He had married a Christian princess named Bertha before 588, and perhaps earlier than 560 . Bertha was the daughter of Charibert I, one of the Merovingian kings of the Franks . As one of the conditions of her marriage she had brought a bishop named Liudhard with her to Kent as her chaplain . They restored a church in Canterbury that dated to Roman times, possibly the present - day St Martin's Church . Æthelberht was at that time a pagan, but he allowed his wife freedom of worship . Liudhard does not appear to have made many converts among the Anglo - Saxons, and if not for the discovery of a gold coin bearing the inscription Leudardus Eps (Eps is an abbreviation of Episcopus, the Latin word for bishop) his existence may have been doubted . One of Bertha's biographers states that, influenced by his wife, Æthelberht requested Pope Gregory to send missionaries . The historian Ian Wood feels that the initiative came from the Kentish court as well as the queen . </P> <P> In 597 the mission landed in Kent, and it quickly achieved some initial success: Æthelberht permitted the missionaries to settle and preach in his capital of Canterbury, where they used the church of St. Martin's for services, and this church became the seat of the bishopric . Neither Bede nor Gregory mentions the date of Æthelberht's conversion, but it probably took place in 597 . </P>

Who was sent to england to convert the pagan anglo-saxons