text: The dates of Æthelberht's birth and accession to the throne of Kent are both matters of debate. Bede, the earliest source to give dates, is thought to have drawn his information from correspondence with Albinus. Bede states that when Æthelberht died in 616 he had reigned for fifty-six years, placing his accession in 560. Bede also says that Æthelberht died twenty-one years after his baptism. Augustine's mission from Rome is known to have arrived in 597, and according to Bede, it was this mission that converted Æthelberht. Hence Bede's dates are inconsistent. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, an important source for early dates, is inconsistent with Bede and also has inconsistencies among different manuscript versions. Putting together the different dates in the Chronicle for birth, death and length of reign, it appears that Æthelberht's reign was thought to have been either 560–616 or 565–618 but that the surviving sources have confused the two traditions.
  It is possible that Æthelberht was converted to Christianity before Augustine's arrival. Æthelberht's wife was a Christian and brought a Frankish bishop with her, to attend her at court, so Æthelberht would have had knowledge of Christianity before the mission reached Kent. It also is possible that Bede had the date of Æthelberht's death wrong; if, in fact, Æthelberht died in 618, this would be consistent with his baptism in 597, which is in accord with the tradition that Augustine converted the king within a year of his arrival.
  Gregory of Tours, in his Historia Francorum, writes that Bertha, daughter of Charibert I, king of the Franks, married the son of the king of Kent. Bede says that Æthelberht received Bertha "from her parents". If Bede is interpreted literally, the marriage would have had to take place before 567, when Charibert died. The traditions for Æthelberht's reign, then, would imply that Æthelberht married Bertha before either 560 or 565.