And now began that long duel between prelate and king, with visits to Rome, confiscations, imprisonments, reconciliations, repentances, which lasted with some intermissions and some changes in the person of the royal disputant, for nearly thirty years, and which in some of its vicissitudes reminds us of the contention between Henry Plantagenet and Thomas Becket. It is a history with much intrinsic interest, and rendered additionally interesting to us by the fact that the Life of Wilfrid by Eddius, in which it is recorded, was written some years before the Ecclesiastical History of Bede, and is probably the earliest extant piece of Latin writing that has proceeded from an Anglo-Saxon pen. Skilfully escaping from the toils of his enemies (whose emissaries by a laughable mistake attacked and plundered a harmless bishop named Winfrid instead of him), Wilfrid landed in Friesland, made friends with the king of the Frisians, and began that career of missionary enterprise in Germany which was continued by his disciple, Willibrord, and in later years by the West Saxon, Boniface, with vast results on European history. He then travelled through Gaul, visiting King Dagobert II., whom, when an exile in Ireland, he had sped on his way to France, and thus had helped to recover his father’s throne. Dagobert’s gratitude now showed itself by assisting Wilfrid on his journey to Rome. In Italy he was befriended in a similar way by the Lombard King Perctarit, who had himself once led the life of a hunted fugitive, and refused to surrender him to his foes. Arriving at Rome, where he spent the winter of 679–80, he laid his complaint before the recently consecrated Pope, Agatho the Sicilian, and claimed his protection. A council was held in the Lateran basilica, where Theodore’s representative, a monk named Coenred, stated the case for Canterbury. Wilfrid’s petition was read, setting forth that he did not refuse to consent to the division of his bishopric, but claiming that he should be consulted as to the persons intruded upon him as colleagues; and the synod having listened to the representations of “the most holy Archbishop Theodore” and “the God-beloved Bishop Wilfrid” decided in favour of the latter.