Edwin of Northumbria

Edwin, king of Northumbria, was the most powerful ruler in Britain in his day. The account of his conversion is in Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People (completed 731), in John Allen Giles’s translation. Considering whether to accept the Christian faith brought to him by the missionary Paulinus, Edwin put the question to his council. One of his chief men answered with a comparison.

The present life of man, O king, seems to me, in comparison of that time which is unknown to us, like to the swift flight of a sparrow through the room wherein you sit at supper in winter, with your commanders and ministers, and a good fire in the midst, whilst the storms of rain and snow prevail abroad; the sparrow, I say, flying in at one door, and immediately out at another, whilst he is within, is safe from the wintry storm; but after a short space of fair weather, he immediately vanishes out of your sight, into the dark winter from which he had emerged.Bede, Ecclesiastical History II.13 (tr. J. A. Giles)

The councillor concluded that if the new teaching offered any greater certainty about what came before and after this life, it deserved to be followed. Edwin accepted the faith and was baptized by Paulinus at York in 627. He was killed in battle in 633, and is venerated as a martyr.