Actually, Augustine did not establish the English Church. Far from it, in fact. When he arrived in Kent—an obscure Saxon kingdom in South England—it was virtually the only part of the British Isles that remained almost entirely heathen. I say almost entirely because there was a Christian presence in Kent: priests and monks from Gaul (now France) who ministered to Queen Bertha, a Christian princess from Gaul, who was consort of the Kentish king. The West and North of the British Isles were, to all intents and purposes, wholly Christian. And there was an extensive network of Christian missions throughout the rest of Britain.

Far from converting Britain to Christianity, Augustine found that the task had largely been accomplished by a Church one rarely hears about these days. It was the indigenous British Church—commonly called the Celtic Church; the Church that we, today, call the Church of England.

Claims that Augustine was Primate of Britain are, thus, quite empty. Britain already had its own Primate—the Archbishop of Carleon, the successor to St. David, the patron saint of Wales, who had died some 20 years before Augustine’s arrival. The British Isles also boasted 120 bishops and thousands of priests, not to mention many thousands of monks and nuns.

It is difficult to know what Augustine would have made of the claims made on his behalf by modern historians. Certainly, he tried to assert Pope Gregory the Great’s authority, but his efforts were not in any great degree successful.