62 ROGIE OF WENDOVER. [A.D. C05 of the principal sees : the dignity of London shall adorn Canterbury," &c. The same year, Mellitus, being sent oy the blessed Augus tine into the province of the East-Saxons to preach the gospel, converted king Sebert, with the whole of his nation, to the faith of Christ. Now this Sebert was nephew to Athelbert, the great king of Kent, by his sister Ricula, and was under subjection to him, for Athelbert governed all the nations of the English as far as the river Humber. The same year, the emperor Maurice, a man who feared God, prayed that God would of his mercy grant that he might bear the punishment of his sins in this life. While he was one night resting on his bed, a voice was addressed to him from heaven, saying, "Maurice, give up thyself, and thy wife Constantia, and thy children, to the soldier Phocas." On awaking from sleep, he inquired of his attendants if they knew among his troops any soldier named Phocas. They replied that they did. On his further asking what sort of man he was, they answered that he was a proud and rash young man. Augustus thereupon, recurring to his dream, glorified God exceedingly for the vision. After this, in an expedition in an enemy's land, on his endeavouring to restrain the soldiers from slaying and ravaging, and not supplying them with their usual pay, they asked Phocas to take on himself the command over them ; who readily assented, and assumed the imperial purple. On hearing of which, Maurice, distracted in mind, yielded to his adverse circumstances, and fled to a grove by the sea-side, where he was slain with his wife and five sons, by the command of Phocas Caesar ; who, having thus usurped the Roman dominion, reigned eight years. How the blessed Gregory delivered the soul of the emperor Trajan from the pains of hell. In the year of grace 605, in the second year of the reign of Phocas, the blessed pope Gregory departed out of this world unto the Lord. This blessed man, in his lifetime, while one day walking through the forum of the emperor Trajan,* which had in times past been adorned by that * Paulus and Johannes Diacones coincide in this account, but Baronius and the Benedictine editors reject it.