"Speech to Augustine" is a speech by Ethelbert, delivered in its historical setting. After this short context paragraph, the reading gives the speech itself so students can examine voice, argument, and audience pressure in the speaker's own words.

The speech was given by the Saxon King Ethelbert of Kent on meeting Augustine, who would become a Saint and first Archbishop of Canterbury. Source comes from The London Quarterly and Holborn Review, Volume 54, p. 55.

Your words are fair, and your promises - but because they are new and doubtful, I cannot give my assent to them, and leave the customs which I have so long observed, with the whole Anglo-Saxon race. But because you have come hither as strangers from a long distance, and as I seem to have myself seen clearly, that what you yourselves believed to be true and good, you wish to impart to us, we do not wish to molest you; nay, rather we are anxious to receive you hospitably, and to give you all that is needed for your support, nor do we hinder you from joining all whom you can to the faith of your religion.

The speech was given by the Saxon King Ethelbert of Kent on meeting Augustine, who would become a Saint and first Archbishop of Canterbury.