The second Book of Bede's History, opening with the death of Gregory the Great in 605, ended with the death of Edwin and the flight of Paulinus a little less than 30 years later. The third Book is largely devoted to an account of the Columban mission to Lindisfarne and of all the consequences which flowed from the presence of Irish clergy working among the English, consequences which issued not merely in the widening of missionary work in hitherto pagan areas, but also in the resolution of liturgical conflicts between Roman and Celtic practices at the synod of Whitby which was held a few years before Bede's birth. Looking back to this generation, to which Bede's parents belonged, we need not only to discard the overtones of modern nationalist sentiment conveyed by the inevitable use of such terms as Celtic, Irish, English and Roman, but also to remember that the English were still enemies to the British whose lands they were taking more and more into their possession. Welsh monks had been slaughtered by the pagan Englishman, Æthelfrith. The Christian Edwin had been killed by a Welshman, and the crime was no less because that Welshman was himself a Christian.