Bede relates that a group of native bishops consulted an old hermit who said they should obey Augustine if, when they next met with him, Augustine rose when he greeted the natives. But if Augustine failed to stand up when they arrived for the second meeting, they should not submit. When Augustine failed to rise to greet the second delegation of British bishops at the next meeting, Bede says the native bishops refused to submit to Augustine. Bede then has Augustine proclaim a prophecy that because of lack of missionary effort towards the Anglo-Saxons from the British church, the native church would suffer at the hands of the Anglo-Saxons. This prophecy was seen as fulfilled when Æthelfrith of Northumbria supposedly killed 1200 native monks at the Battle of Chester. Bede uses the story of Augustine's two meetings with two groups of British bishops as an example of how the native clergy refused to cooperate with the Gregorian mission. Later, Aldhelm, the abbot of Malmesbury, writing in the later part of the 7th century, claimed that the native clerks would not eat with the missionaries, nor would they perform Christian ceremonies with them. Laurence, Augustine's successor, writing to the Irish bishops during his tenure of Canterbury, also stated that an Irish bishop, Dagan, would not share meals with the missionaries. One probable reason for the British clergy's refusal to cooperate with the Gregorian missionaries was the ongoing conflict between the natives and the Anglo-Saxons, who still were encroaching upon British lands at the time of the mission. The British were unwilling to preach to the invaders of their country, and the invaders saw the natives as second-class citizens, and would have been unwilling to listen to any conversion efforts. There was also a political dimension, as the missionaries could be seen as agents of the invaders; because Augustine was protected by Æthelberht, submitting to Augustine would have been seen as submitting to Æthelberht's authority, which the British bishops would have been unwilling to do. Most of the information on the Gregorian mission comes from Bede's narrative, and this reliance on one source necessarily leaves the picture of native missionary efforts skewed. First, Bede's information is mainly from the north and the east of Britain. The western areas, where the native clergy was strongest, was an area little covered by Bede's informants. In addition, although Bede presents the native church as one