p.
108, 109.

[u] Bede, lib.5.c.

7.] The sovereign pontiff, encouraged by this blindness and submissive disposition of the people, advanced every day in his encroachments on the independence of the English churches.

Wilfrid, Bishop of Lindisferne, the sole prelate of the Northumbrian kingdom, increased this subjection in the eighth century, by his making an appeal to Rome against the decisions of an English synod, which had abridged his diocese by the erection of some new bishoprics [w].

Agatho, the pope, readily embraced this precedent of an appeal to his court; and Wilfrid, though the haughtiest and most luxurious prelate of his age [x], having obtained with the people the character of sanctity, was thus able to lay the foundation of this papal pretension.
[FN [w] See Appendix to Bede, numb.19.