The gospel was first preached in Britain only a few years after the death of Christ. Gildas a Celtic priest and early church historian recorded in the 6th century that:
"Meanwhile these islands (Britain), stiff with cold, and frozen by the distant rays of the visible sun, received the beams of light, that is, the holy precepts of Christ, the true Sun, displaying to the whole world his splendour, not only from the temporal firmament, but from the height of heaven, which surpasses everything temporal, at the latter part, as we know, of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, by whom his religion was propagated without impediment, and death threatened to those who interfered with its professors."
Gildas, De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae (On the Ruin and Conquest of Britain) §8.
Tiberius reigned from 14 to 37 AD and is mentioned in the Gospel of Luke:
Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judaea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, … Annas and Caiaphas being the high priests, the word of God came unto John (the baptist) the son of Zacharias in the wilderness. (Luk 3:1-2)
So John the Baptist started preaching in AD 29 {15yrs added to AD 14} and as a recent study has demonstrated Christ's ministry actually only lasted just over one year, this means Jesus would have been crucified in AD 30, possibly AD 31. So using the timing mentioned by Gildas above the gospel was being preached in England within seven years of the death of Christ.
Scoffed at by many as exaggeration Paul wrote circa AD 60–62:
For the hope which is laid up for you in heaven, whereof ye heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel; Which is come unto you, as it is in all the world; and bringeth forth fruit, as it doth also in you, since the day ye heard of it, and knew the grace of God in truth. (Col 1:5-6)
But now read what Tertullian in Adversus Judaeos (Against the Jews) §7, wrote circa AD 198–203:
"For upon whom else have the universal nations believed, but upon the Christ who is already come? For whom have all nations believed: the Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and they who inhabit Mesopotamia, Armenia, Phrygia, Cappadocia; the dwellers in Pontus and Asia and Pamphylia; sojourners in Egypt and inhabitants of the region of Africa beyond Cyrene; Romans and strangers; yes, and in Jerusalem Jews and all other nations; as, for instance, the various tribes of the Getulians, and many borders of the Moors, all the confines of Spain, and the diverse nations of the Gauls, and the haunts of the Britons, inaccessible to the Romans, but subjugated to Christ…"
Bishop Eusebius of Caesarea wrote circa AD 310-325 the Demonstratio Evangelica (Proof of the Gospel, Book 3, §5), in which he gives great detail about how after Christ's ascension an initially small band of first generation believers many of them being unlearned ordinary men, achieved the extraordinary, by reaching virtually the whole known world with the gospel which included Britain within their own generation.
"For who would not be amazed to learn that men, poor and ignorant, not enough in number to be reckoned, had power to preach in the name of Jesus to all nations? ... Some of them crossed the ocean and reached the isles called the Britannic Isles; others penetrated into the countries of the Indians; others into the lands of the Persians; and others to the Armenians, Parthians and Scythians..."
(Summary of translation: The Proof of the Gospel W. J. Ferrar. Out of copyright, available on internet.)
Theodoretus the Bishop of Cyrrhus in 435 wrote in his Commentary on Psalm 116:
“Paul liberated from his first captivity at Rome preached the Gospel to the Britons and to others in the west.”
The above quote is relatively late but it is interesting to note that in the First Epistle of Clement circa AD 95–96, he mentions the ministry of Paul in the west that is not recorded in the book of Acts.
“(Paul) Having taught righteousness unto the whole world and having reached the farthest bounds of the West; and when he had borne his testimony before the rulers, so he departed from the world and went unto the holy place, having been found a notable pattern of patient endurance." (1Clem 5:6)
There are several other interesting passages often quoted that have contestable historical validity. A very late quote from Arnoldus Mirmannus an early church historian writing in the 16th century teeters on the boundary.
“Paul passed to Britain in the fourth year of Nero and there preached and afterwards returned to Italy.”
(The 4th year of Nero was AD 59)
When the Romans invaded Britain (43 AD) they eventually captured the famous Cambrian Celtic leader Caractacus (50 AD) and took him to Rome. Some claim that He was allowed back to Britain to rule under the Romans while his family were held hostage in Rome. His father Bran was held in Rome from 51 to 58 when he returned home with the gospel. Caractacus’s son Linus and daughter Claudia continued in Rome as hostages. Claudia married a Roman Senator called Pudens. Paul wrote to Timothy:
Do thy diligence to come before winter. Eubulus greets thee, and Pudens, and Linus, and Claudia, and all the brethren. [2 Tim 4:21]
Not only were these famous British Celts mentioned in the Bible they also became martyrs.
He arrived in England in 597 sent by Pope Gregory to subdue the existing church and to subject it along with the nation to Roman Catholic Rule. Augustine knew he would find a strong indigenous church that claimed it was based on apostolic foundations. Knowing that ultimately he had the Emperor behind him He inspired the massacre in 604 of Cambrian (Welsh) clergy at Bangor in North Wales. Many were murdered for not "converting" to Catholicism throughout Britain.
It is said that under the influence of Augustine’s monks King Ethelbert stopped worshipping Thor and Woden and became a Christian. He gave Augustine his palace at Canterbury. The previously well established Celtic believers were not happy about this. In the main they refused to submit to him especially in Wales and Scotland.
A major win for Catholicism occurred in 663 when at the Synod of Whitby King Oswin of Northumbria decreed that the indigenous church was to follow the Roman and not the Celtic traditions.
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