This brief sketch will enable the reader to follow further particulars. KING OFFA. Pope Adrian I. had risen from the position of a subject of the empire to that of a sovereign prince through the instrumentality of Charlemagne. Jaenbert, archbishop of Canterbury, thought that by the same person he could exercise sovereign authority, like the Bishop of Rome, over the kingdom of Kent as feudatory of Charlemagne. Offa, the Mercian king, had assumed the title of King of Kent and treated it as a province of Mercia. The King of France was too shrewd a diplomatist to encourage such a foolish idea as that of the Archbishop against the terrible and powerful Offa. But Offa found out this prelate’s intrigues, and instead of sending an army to Kent to crush Jaenbert, he adopted another line of policy of dividing his ecclesiastical province, and having a full-blown archbishop in his own kingdom of Mercia, with his seat at Lichfield, and endowed with the revenues which Jaenbert had drawn from that part of his province.[64] Offa had thus touched Jaenbert’s pocket, a very sore point with some people. In order to carry out his design of changing the bishopric of Lichfield into an archbishopric with metropolitan powers, he sent a special mission to the Pope, and it was during this negotiation that the shrewd Adrian came on the scene in English history. Adrian had reason to fear Offa’s power, for there is a letter from Offa to Charlemagne, intriguing to depose Adrian, and put a Frenchman in the chair of St. Peter.[65] Higbert, bishop of Lichfield (c. 779), was made archbishop by Offa in 785; he first signs the charter as archbishop in 788, but could not act as Metropolitan, and so be on an equality with the Metropolitans of Canterbury and York, without the pallium, which it was taken as granted could only be given by the Pope. The pallium is a long strip of fine woollen cloth, ornamented with crosses, the middle of which was formed into a loose collar resting on the shoulders, while the extremities before and behind hung down nearly to the feet. This pallium gave him the power to ordain the bishops of his province, or to summon them to his synod, or to sit on the archiepiscopal throne. It was the sign of the Pope’s confirmation of his appointment as archbishop. The Roman Curia at first hesitated to comply with the King’s request. Offa was determined to carry his point, and he knew well by what means he could realize his object. He resorted to wholesale bribery among the Roman officials, and thus gained his point.[66] Peter’s pence probably was also part of the bargain.[67] I have gone into details on this subject on account of the results which followed. Hitherto the Church of England was practically independent of the Roman Church. But here was a splendid opportunity for so astute a diplomatist as Adrian to advance Papal supremacy over the Anglican Church. Certainly, Theodore’s appointment was a great step in the same direction.