No writ was issued for the consecration of Thomas of York until Lanfranc had received consecration, and this delay was perhaps intentional; for when Thomas brought the writ to Lanfranc he was bidden to profess obedience to the see of Canterbury. He refused to do so, on the ground that Gregory had instituted two co-ordinate archbishoprics. On the other hand, the bishops of York, from Paulinus to Ecgberht, had not enjoyed metropolitan dignity, and even since Ecgberht's time the see had occupied an inferior position to Canterbury. Lanfranc had papal decrees and other evidences on his side, and gained the king's support by representing that an independent metropolitan at York might crown an independent king of Northumbria. William compelled Thomas to profess obedience to Lanfranc personally, and, with respect to the future, ordered that the question should be decided by the Pope. When the two archbishops went to Rome for their palls, Alexander was about to degrade Thomas and Remigius, bishop of Dorchester, who went with them, on account of canonical irregularity, and only forbore to do so at Lanfranc's request. Thomas brought forward the matter of the profession, and further claimed Dorchester, Lichfield, and Worcester as subject to York. Alexander referred these matters to the decision of an English synod, and the case seems to have been heard before a mixed assembly of clergy and laity, which pronounced against Thomas; he was forced to make a general profession of obedience, the Humber was declared the boundary between the provinces, and he was left with only one suffragan, the bishop of Durham. This disproportion between the archbishoprics had not been contemplated by Gregory, for his division, which was based on the assumption that the whole island was under one rule, included Scotland in the province of York. Under William and Lanfranc the English Church made its power felt in yet unconquered Celtic lands. The claim of York was asserted over Scotland. As that country had no metropolitan and no organized episcopal system, the assertion was plausible, and a bishop of the Orkneys was certainly consecrated by Thomas. It is extremely doubtful whether the authority of Canterbury was in any instance acknowledged in Wales during this reign, though a few years later it was, as we shall see, successfully asserted. In Ireland the irregular condition of the episcopacy naturally led kings and bishops to look up to Lanfranc; he consecrated two archbishops of Dublin, who made profession to him, and he wrote with authority to two kings on matters of discipline. An approach was thus made to the ecclesiastical submission of Ireland, and the primate of Britain was not unreasonably held by Latin Christendom to be "Patriarch of the nations beyond the sea." [Sidenote: National synods and ecclesiastical courts.]