was the willingness of Æthelberht to be baptised by a non-Frank. The king would have been wary of allowing the Frankish bishop Liudhard to convert him, as that might open Kent up to Frankish claims of overlordship. But being converted by an agent of the distant Roman pontiff was not only safer, it allowed the added prestige of accepting baptism from the central source of the Latin Church. As the Roman Church was considered part of the Roman Empire in Constantinople, this also would gain Æthelberht acknowledgement from the emperor. Other historians have attributed the success of the mission to the substantial resources Gregory invested in its success; he sent over forty missionaries in the first group, with more joining them later, a quite significant number. Legacy The last of Gregory's missionaries, Archbishop Honorius, died on 30 September 653. He was succeeded as archbishop by Deusdedit, a native Englishman. Pagan practices The missionaries were forced to proceed slowly, and could not do much about eliminating pagan practices, or destroying temples or other sacred sites, unlike the missionary efforts that had taken place in Gaul under St Martin. There was little fighting or bloodshed during the mission. Paganism was still practised in Kent until the 630s, and it was not declared illegal until 640. Although Honorius sent Felix to the East Angles, it appears that most of the impetus for conversion came from the East Anglian king. With the Gregorian missionaries, a third strand of Christian practice was added to the British Isles, to combine with the Gaulish and the Hiberno-British strands already present. Although it is often suggested that the Gregorian missionaries introduced the Rule of Saint Benedict into England, there is no supporting evidence. The early archbishops at Canterbury claimed supremacy over all the bishops in the British Isles, but their claim was not acknowledged by most of the rest of the bishops. The Gregorian missionaries appear to have played no part in the conversion of the West Saxons, who were converted by Birinus, a missionary sent directly by Pope Honorius I. Neither did they have much lasting influence in Northumbria, where after Edwin's death the conversion of the Northumbrians was achieved by missionaries from Iona, not Canterbury. Papal aspects An important by-product of the Gregorian mission was the close relationship it fostered between the Anglo-Saxon Church and the Roman Church. Although Gregory had intended for the southern archiepiscopal