3-085-682 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

"The Conversion of England," an ecclesiastical play at the Church House, Westminster, 1898. 'Second Tableau - Heathen England. Sebba - "The Gods declare him guilty!" Seventh Tableau - the Meeting of the King and the Missionaries - The performance...by Churchmen, clerical and lay, of a play founded...on ancient ecclesiastical chronicles, has for the student of the evolution of the English drama an historical interest...the early mystery plays, from which the national drama was developed, through the intervening miracle-plays, were...originally performed by the clergy under ecclesiastical patronage, in many cases under the very shadow of the walls of their churches. The play, written by the Rev. Henry Cresswell...consists of ten scenes representing incidents for the most part chronicled by the Venerable Bede. Pope Gregory's interest in the "non Angli sed Angeli" slaves in the Roman marketplace opens the drama...The baptism of King Ethelbert by Augustine, and the enthronement of Augustine as Archbishop of England, are illustrated in two particularly striking tableaux, and the play closes with the compact between the Augustinian and British monks, after the death of the saint himself, for the Christianising of the country.' From "Illustrated London News", 1898.