Baring-Gould’s sources: Mayhew in his Benedictine Martyrology.] James, an Italian deacon, accompanied S. Paulinus in his mission work in Northumbria in the early part of the 7th century. After the disastrous battle of Hatfield, in which Edwin the converted and baptized Northumbrian king had fallen (Oct. 11,633), Paulinus fled, taking under his protection Ethelburga, the widow of Edwin, whom he placed under the care of her brother, the King of Kent. Christianity was blotted out, only a few sparks remained alight, kept from extinction by the efforts of the brave deacon James, who remained at York through all the disasters to which Northumbria was exposed. S. James.

When S. Oswald ascended the throne of Northumbria [the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of northern England and south-east Scotland] (a.d. 635), he sent for missionaries to Iona, instead of Canterbury, and for some reason not mentioned by Bede [English monk and historian (d. 735)], overlooked James, who had remained gallantly at his post during the storm of invasion and havoc, and had continued to baptize, and preach, and snatch a scanty prey from the hands of that old enemy, the devil.1 VOL. IX.