The respectful deference paid to the Roman See was thus naturally converted into a much closer and more intimate relation. Saxon England was essentially the child of Rome; whatever obligations any of her kingdoms may have been under to the Keltic missionaries,—and I cannot persuade myself that these were at all considerable,—she certainly had entirely lost sight of them at the close of the seventh and the commencement of the eighth centuries. Her national bishops, as the Kelts and disciples of the Kelts have been unjustifiably called, had either retired in disgust, like Colman, or been deposed like Winfrið, or apostatized like Cedd. It was to Rome that her nobles and prelates wandered as pilgrims; it was the interests of Rome that her missionaries preached in Germany[858] and Friesland; it was to her that the archbishops elect looked for their pall[859]—the sign of their dignity: to the Pope her prelates appealed for redress, or for authority: in the eighth century we find one pope sanctioning the formation of a third archiepiscopal see, in defiance of the metropolitan of Canterbury; and in the first year of the ninth century we find this new arrangement abrogated by the same authority. Lastly it was England that gave to Rome Wilfrið and Willibrord and Adelberht, Boniface and Willibald, Anselm and Becket and Robert of Winchelsea. ----- Footnote 858: Boniface found an ancient church even in Germany. Vit. Bonif. Pertz, ii. 341. He rendered it a papal one. It is no doubt difficult to imagine how it could have been originally anything else; but at all events his efforts brought it back into subjection to the Vatican. “D’abord les églises de la Grand Bretagne et de l’Allemagne, fondées par les missionaires du pape, furent toutes rattachées et subordonnées à l’épiscopat Romain. C’est surtout Saint Boniface, le fondateur de l’église Allemande, mort en 755, qui reserra cette union. Ou diminua partout les métropolitains, et les simples évêques devinrent plus indépendans par leurs rapports directs avec Rome.” Warnkönig, Hist. du Droit Belgique, p. 163. The spirit in which Boniface considered his mission, which he himself calls _apostolicae sedis legatio_ (Vita, Pertz, ii. 342) is apparent from the correspondence with Pope Gregory III. in 731. “Denuo Romam nuntii eius venerunt, sanctumque sedis Apostolicae pontificem adlocuti sunt, eique prioris amicitiae foedera, quae misericorditer ab antecessore suo, Sancto Bonifatio eiusque familiae conlata sunt, manifestaverunt; sed et devotam eius in futurum humilitatis apostolicae sedi subiectionem narraverunt, et ut familiaritati ac communioni sancti pontificis atque totius sedis apostolicae ex hoc devote subiectus communicaret, quemadmodum edocti erant, praecabantur. Statim ergo sedis apostolicae Papa pacificum profert responsum, et suam sedisque apostolicae familiaritatis et amicitiae communionem tam sancto Bonifatio quam etiam sibi subiectis