sent Augustine back to Rome to request papal permission to return, which Gregory refused, and instead sending Augustine back with letters to encourage the missionaries to persevere. Another reason for the pause may have been the receipt of news of the death of King Childebert II, who had been expected to help the missionaries; Augustine may have returned to Rome to secure new instructions and letters of introduction, as well as to update Gregory on the new political situation in Gaul. Most likely, they halted in the Rhone valley. Gregory also took the opportunity to name Augustine as abbot of the mission. Augustine then returned to the rest of the missionaries, with new instructions, probably including orders to seek consecration as a bishop on the Continent if the conditions in Kent warranted it. 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. Process of conversion In the early medieval period, large-scale conversions required the ruler's conversion first, and large numbers of converts are recorded within a year of the mission's arrival in Kent. By 601, Gregory was writing to both Æthelberht and Bertha, calling the king his son and referring to his baptism. A late medieval tradition, recorded by the 15th-century chronicler Thomas Elmham, gives the date of the king's conversion as Whit Sunday, or 2 June 597; there is no reason to doubt this date, but there is no other evidence for it. A letter of Gregory's to Patriarch Eulogius of Alexandria in June 598 mentions the number of converts made, but does not mention any baptism of the king in 597, although it is clear that by 601 he had been converted. The royal baptism probably took place at Canterbury but Bede does not mention the location. Why Æthelberht chose to convert to Christianity is uncertain. Bede suggests that the king converted strictly for religious reasons, but most modern historians see other motives behind Æthelberht's decision. Certainly, given Kent's close contacts with Gaul, it is possible that Æthelberht sought baptism in order to smooth his relations with the Merovingian kingdoms, or to align himself