Having overthrown his enemy with great slaughter, he returned to his royal city of Coningsborough (the king's town), and put himself as a catechumen under the care of Paulinus.

The pope himself was induced to interest himself in so promising a convert; and he wrote a couple of briefs to Eadwine and his queen.

These letters, the originals of which were carefully preserved at Rome, are copied out in full by Baeda.

No doubt, the honour of receiving such an epistle from the pontiff of the Eternal City was not without its effect upon the semi-barbaric mind of Eadwine, who seems in some respects to have inherited the old Roman traditions of Eboracum.
Still the king held back.

To change his own faith was to change the faith of the whole nation, and he thought it well to consult his witan.
The old English assembly was always aristocratic in character, despite its ostensible democracy, for it consisted only of the heads of families; and as the kingdoms grew larger, their aristocratic character necessarily became more pronounced, as only the wealthier persons could be in attendance upon the king.