case in England in which St. Peter and the power of the keys did good duty for the Church of Rome. The result of this discussion turned the scales from Irish to Roman Christianity as the religion of England. King Oswy had, before the synod met, held the Celtic views. His son, who was present, held the Roman views. The result of this discussion led to serious changes in the Church of England, for in the same year, A.D. 664, the archbishopric of Canterbury became vacant, and Kings Oswy and Egbert sent to Rome Wighard, an Englishman, whom they appointed, there to be consecrated archbishop by the Pope, because there was no metropolitan in England to perform this duty of consecration. He died there, and then the Pope was empowered by the same kings to select and consecrate a suitable person himself. “We have not been able,” writes Pope Vitalian, “now to find a man docile and qualified in all respects to be a bishop according to the tenor of your letter.”[60] Again, “King Egbert, being informed by messengers that _the bishop they had asked of the Roman prelate_ was in the kingdom of France.”[61] From these two quotations, it is beyond all doubt or question that the English kings did ask the Pope to select a qualified person for the see of Canterbury. And it is absurd for Protestant writers, such as Soames, in the face of these quotations, to assert that Theodore’s appointment was a piece of skilful manœuvring on the part of the Pope. It was nothing of the sort. It is but reasonable to assume that when Wighard died in Rome, Vitalian wrote at once and informed the English kings of the event, and that they then, although we have not their letters, asked the Pope to choose a man for them. He therefore consecrated Theodore, a Greek by birth and education. We all know what followed. In the same year the Pope conferred on Theodore the “supremacy over all England.”[62] He landed in England in 669, and held his see for twenty-one years. The Churches of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms were independent of each other up to the arrival of Theodore, who had energetically worked to unite all the Churches under the metropolitan power of Canterbury. Here then we are on solid ground. The Pope’s supremacy over all the Churches in England dates from the archiepiscopate of Theodore. There is no reference to tithes from the publication of Theodore’s “Penitential,” probably about A.D. 686, until the two legates came to England in 787, or a period of one hundred years, Archbishop Boniface of Mentz, writing to Archbishop Cuthbert between 746 and 749, refers to tithes having then been received by English bishops, “In daily offerings,” he says, “and tithes of the faithful, they receive the milk and wool of the sheep of Christ, but they take no care of the Lord’s flock.” [“Lac et lanas ovium Christi oblationibus cotidianis ac decimis fidelium suscipiunt; et curam gregis Domini deponunt.”[63]] Here is an early instance of endowed bishops neglecting their flocks.