length of the journey, and the necessities of their dioceses, were admitted as a legitimate excuse; and in lieu of their presence in the synod, the pontiff consented to accept a public profession of their faith. John, abbot of St Martin's, was selected as papal legate on this occasion : and shortly after his arrival, Theodore and his suffragans assembled at Hethfield, and declared their adhesion to the decrees of the five first general councils, and to the condemnation of Monothelitism by Martin the first. The legate subscribed with the bishops, and received a copy of the acts, which he forwarded to Rome (36).

From the faith, the enquiries of the popes were soon directed to the manners of the Saxons. While Theodore lived, the vigilance of his administration supported the vigour of ecclesiastical discipline: but under his more indulgent, or less active successors, it was insensibly relaxed, till the loud report of Saxon immorality aroused the patriotism of St Boniface, and provoked the animadversions of Zachary, the Roman pontiff. The missionary, from the heart of Germany, the theatre of his zeal, wrote in terms of the most earnest expostulation to the principal of the Saxon kings and prelates: the pontiff commanded archbishop Cuthbert and his suffragans, under the penalty of excommunication, to oppose the severity of the canons, to the corrupt practices of the times.

(36) Intererat huic synodo, pariterque Catholicæ fidei decreta firmabat vir venerabilis Joannes Volens Agatho Papa, sicut in aliis provinciis, ita etiam in Britannia, qualis esset status ecclesiæ ediscere, hoc negotium reverentissimo Abbati Joanni injunxit. Quamobrem collecta ob hoc synodo, inventa est in omnibus fides inviolata Catholica, datumque illi exemplar ejus Romam perferendum. Bed. 1. iv. c. 18.

His injunctions were cheerfully obeyed; the fathers of the council of Cloveshoe professed their readiness to second the zeal of the supreme pastor; and thirty canons of discipline were published for the general reformation of the bishops, clergy, monks, and laity (37).

The successors of Zachary inherited the vigilance of their predecessor. Forty years had not elapsed, when Adrian deemed it expedient to send the bishops of Ostia and Tudertum to Britain, with a code of laws for the use of the Anglo-Saxon church. The legates were received with respect by the clergy and laity. At their request two synods were assembled, one in Mercia, the other in Northumbria; twenty canons were published; and a solemn promise was received from each bishop, that he would cause them to be faithfully observed in his diocese (38). But during the invasions of the Northmen, the

(37) The letter of Zachary is thus described in the proœmium to the acts of the council. Scripta toto orbe venerandi pontificis, Domni Apostolici papæ Zachariæ, in duabus chartis in medium prolata sunt, et cum magna diligentia, juxta quod ipse apostolica sua auctoritate præcepit, et manifeste recitata, et in nostra quoque lingua apertius interpretata sunt. Quibus namque scriptis Britanniæ hujus insulæ nostri generis accolas familiariter præmonebat, et veraciter conveniebat, et postremo amabiliter exorabat, et hæc omnia contemnentibus, et in sua pertinaci malitia permanentibus anathematis sententiam proculdubio proferendam insinuabat. Wilk. con. p. 94. Language so forcible might have appalled a less sturdy polemic: but the sagacity or temerity of Dr Henry has selected this very council to prove, that the Saxon church rejected the papal supremacy. The curious reader may turn to note (I) at the end of the volume.

(38) The mission of these legates, as well as of the abbot John, has escaped the philosopic eye of Hume, who assures us that Ermanfroi, bishop of Sion, three centuries afterwards, was the first

mosus.

feeble restraint of the law could not arrest the rapid decline of discipline, and, for almost a century, the voice of religion was drowned in the louder din of war. The return of tranquillity called forth the zeal of pope ForHe had determined to sever the Saxon bishops from the communion of the holy see : but his anger was appeased by the representations of archbishop Plegmund; and he contented himself with an exhortatory epistle, in which he complained, that, by the negligence of the prelates, the superstitions of paganism had been permitted to revive, and several dioceses been left, for a considerable period, destitute of pastors. After the lapse of fourteen years, both the bishops of Wessex died; and Plegmund seized the favourable opportunity to content the desires of the pope. He convened his suffragans, and divided the kingdom into five smaller districts. His conduct was approved at Rome; and he consecrated, on the same day, no less than seven bishops, five for the sees lately erected, and two for the vacant churches of Selsey and Dorchester (39).

legate who ever appeared in the British isles, (Hume, hist. c. iv. p. 182.) Carte indeed observed them, but at the same time discovered, from a vague expression in the Saxon chronicle, that instead of being invested with any authority, their only object was to renew the ancient correspondence between the two churches, (Carte, hist. vol. i. p. 270.) This idea is satisfactorily refuted by their dispatches to the pontiff. Scripsimus capitulare de singulis rebus, et per ordinem cuncta disserentes auribus illorum pertulimus, qui cum omni humilitatis subjectione, clara voluntate tam admonitionem vestram quam parvitatem nostram amplexantes, spoponderunt se in omnibus obedire. Wilk. con. p. 146.

(39) The reader, who is no stranger to the chronological difficulties, with which this event has tortured the ingenuity of anti

4. In every rational system of legislation, the errors, which may arise from the ignorance or corruption of the inferior officers of justice, should be corrected by the → greater wisdom, and superior authority of the higher courts of judicature. In the christian church the Roman pontiffs were considered as the principal guardians of the canons; and from the earliest antiquity they have claimed and exercised the right of reviewing the causes of those bishops, who appealed to their equity from the partial decisions of provincial or national synods (40). The first of the Saxon prelates, who invoked in his favour the protection of the holy see, was Wilfrid, the celebrated bishop of York (41). The history of his appeals has

quaries, will have observed that, while I admit the epistle of Formosus to be genuine, I reject as fabulous a part of the narrative contained in Malmsbury, and the register of Canterbury. (Wilk. con. p. 199, 200.) I ascribe the epistle to Formosus, not merely on their authority, but principally on that of Eadmer, who, during the dispute respecting the precedency of Canterbury, in the commencement of the twelfth century, appears to have consulted the ancient records of that church, and to have discovered this letter and some others among a greater number, which age had rendered illegible. Eadm. nov. l. v. p. 128, 129. The consecration of the seven bishops could not have occurred before the year 910, when Fridestan, one of their number, is recorded in the Saxon chronicle to have taken possession of the see of Winchester. (Chron. Sax. p. 102.) As Asser, bishop of Sherburne, died only that year, and Denulf, of Winchester, in the preceding, (Ibid. Wigorn. ann. 909), it follows that the story of the kingdom of Wessex having been without a bishop during seven years, is a fiction, which was probably invented to explain the origin of the complaint contained in the letter of Formosus.

(40) Natalis Alex. hist. eccl. sæc. iv. diss. xxviii. prop. 3. (41) Anno 678.

been related by two classes of writers, as opposite in sentiment, as distant in time: by contemporary historians, who lament the causes which rendered them necessary, and hail the success with which they were attended: and by modern polemics, who condemn them as the unwarrantable attempts of an ambitious prelate to preserve his own power, by sacrificing the religious liberties of his countrymen. The clamorous warmth of the latter opposes a curious contrast to the silent apathy of the former: and a diligent comparison will justify the conclusion, that the present champions of the independence of the Anglo-Saxon church are actuated by motives, which never guided the pens of the more ancient writers. the remainder of this chapter, I shall attempt to clear the history of Wilfrid from the fictions, with which modern controversy has loaded it (42): my vouchers will be Ed

In

(12) Among the historians, who have disputed with each other the merit of defaming this prelate, the pre-eminence is justly due to Carte, whose laborious volumes have furnished a plentiful source of misrepresentation to the prejudice or negligence of succeeding writers. With the aid of a few scattered hints, in the works of three obscure authors, of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, (Gervase, Stubbs, and Richard of Hexham,) and of many gratuitous suppositions created by his own fancy, he has succeeded in forming a narrative most unfavourable to the character of Wilfrid. He had other, and more authentic documents before him, in the writings of Bede and Eddius. But of these he asserts, that the first has shewn his disapprobation of Wilfrid by his silence and that to Eddius no credit can be given, because he was chaplain to the injured prelate. It may, however, be observed, that Bede has made more frequent mention of Wilfrid, than, perhaps, of any other person, (Bed. 1. iii. c. 13, 25, 28; l. iv. c. 2, 3, 5, 12, 13, 15, 16, 19, 23, 29; 1. v. c. 11, 19); and that Eddius wrote at a time,