EADBALD (d. 640), king of Kent, succeeded to the throne
on the death of his father Æthelberht in 616. He had not been
influenced by the teaching of the Christian missionaries, and
his first step on his accession was to marry his father's widow.
After his subsequent conversion by Laurentius, archbishop of
Canterbury, he recalled the bishops Mellitus and Justus, and built
a church dedicated to the Virgin at Canterbury. He arranged
a marriage between his sister Æthelberg and Edwin of Northumbria, on whose defeat and death in 633 he received his sister and
Paulinus, and offered the latter the bishopric of Rochester.
Eadbald married Emma, a Frankish princess, and died on the
20th of January 640.
See Bede, Historia ecclesiastica (ed. C. Plummer, Oxford, 1896);
Saxon Chronicle (ed. J. Earle and C. Plummer, Oxford, 1899).
