Later, Christianity spread peacefully through the Briton community which was Briton-Roman at this time. This was emphasised after Theodorus I made Christianity the state religion of the Romaoi Empire in 395 AD (yes, Constantine did NOT make Christianity the state religion, he only stopped the persecutions by his edict of Milan in AD 313 -- two years after Emperor Galerius had already put an edict of toleration in AD 311)
The Druidic religion also probably did not put up the stone circles -- that dates from BEFORE the Celts (2000 BC whereas the Celts like the other Aryanic peoples came to Europe and Anatolia only after 1500 BC (Uhrmheit suppositions are from Khwarezim in old Iran or in the north-western Indian sub-continent
But in any case, the Celtic religion was stamped out by the pagan Romaoi Empire and Christianity spread among the Britons peacefully
Finally, anti-R -- the present "English" now are descended from the Saxons -- Germanic invaders who came across in the 5th-6th centuries and pushed OUT the Britons and Romans.....
These were converted peacefully a century later by the works of St. Augustine of Canterbury in 597 (not to be confused with St. Augustine of Hippe, Tunisia)
As usual, there is a bit of a mix to varying degrees, of peaceful, forced by the converted chieftain, and forced by violence. I admit the British isles did have a far more peaceful conversion than, say, the Saxons of the 8th Century. They were lucky in that the early influence of Christianity had started to spread in the years before Rome became a Christian state, which was around the same time as they had to largely pull out to defend against the Visigoths. Christian Rome was in no condition to impose anything in the isles during Theodosius, as he had a hard enough time wiping out the old religions by force in the territories closer to home while keeping the truce with the Visigoths and dealing with civil wars. After Theodosius, Rome basically had no more power, the Sack of Rome being not long after his death. Thus the Celts, by a miracle of timing and events, were spared a violent state-imposed Christianity, and developed their own Christian/Celtic tradition pretty much in isolation for a couple hundred years. By the time the Church got back there, it was in large part an issue of “correcting” their brand of Christianity and spreading the official Catholic word to the rest of the isles.
Duh, I feel like an idiot. Should have mentioned Maximus specifically in the civil war comment. That basically ended Roman military power in the isles, ending the chance of conversion by force by Theodosius. However, Maximus wasn’t exactly forgiving to heretics while he was in power either.
That darn Gladiator movie, now I associate the name “Maximus” with it, forgetting the actual historical people. :)