The whole country north of the Humber was under a single bishop, Wilfrid. The Northumbrian king Egfrid, who was displeased with him, invited Theodore to come to his court, and the archbishop took advantage of the king's dislike of the bishop to carry out his scheme for dividing the Northumbrian bishopric. The allegation that he received a bribe from the king (Eddius, c. 24) is absurd; for, apart from Theodore's character, no bribe was needed to induce him to do that which he desired. Having summoned some bishops to consult with him, Theodore, without any reference to Wilfrid himself, declared the division of his diocese into four bishoprics, including one for Lindsey, lately conquered by Egfrid, and leaving Wilfrid the see of York (ib. and c. 30). Wilfrid appealed to Rome and left the country, and Theodore, without the assistance of any other bishops, consecrated two bishops for Deira and Bernicia, and a third for Lindsey. He then probably went to Lindisfarne and dedicated in honour of St. Peter the church that Finan [q. v.] had built there (Hist. Eccles. iii. 25). In 679, when Egfrid and Ethelred of Mercia were at war, he acted as an arbiter between the contending kings, and by his exhortations put an end to a war that seemed likely to be long and bitter (ib. iv. 21). At this time he carried out a division of the Mercian diocese made at the request of Ethelred, with whom he henceforth was on terms of affection. A bishop was settled at Worcester for the Hwiccians; another at Leicester for the Middle-Angles; Saxulf retained the see of Lichfield; a fourth Mercian diocese was formed with its see at Dorchester (in Oxfordshire); and a fifth bishop was sent to Lindsey, with his see at Sidnacester or Stow, for Lindsey had become Mercian again. Florence of Worcester places the fivefold subdivision of the Mercian see under the one year, 679. No doubt the whole scheme was sanctioned at one time; but the actual changes may have been effected by degrees, though at dates near together (Flor. Wig. App. i. 240; Eccles. Doc. iii. 128–30; Bright, Early English Church History, pp. 349–52; and Plummer, Bede, ii. 245–7). As the bishopric of Hereford appears soon after this, it may also be reckoned as forming part of Theodore's arrangements, though it was not perhaps formally instituted [see under Putta]. A decree purporting to have been made by Theodore, that the West-Saxon diocese was not to be divided during the lifetime of Haeddi, is almost certainly spurious. His regard for the bishop shows that he would probably have met with no opposition from him if he had proposed to divide his diocese. The reason why he did not do so may be found in the political condition of Wessex for some years after the death of Cenwalh (Eccles. Doc. iii. 126–7, 203; Stubbs; Hist. Eccles. iv. 12, see Mr. Plummer's note).
A council is said to have been held at Rome by Pope Agatho in October 679 to remove dissension between Theodore and the bishops of his province. No mention is made of Wilfrid in the report of it, which ‘suits neither the time before nor after Wilfrid's arrival;’ the documentary evidence is unsatisfactory, and it seems safe to consider it spurious (Bright, p. 330, n. 3; Eccles. Doc. iii. 131–6, where it is not so decisively condemned). In that year the pope held a council to decide on Wilfrid's appeal. Theodore had sent a monk named Coenwald with letters to the pope to set forth his own side of the case. The decree of the council was that Wilfrid should be restored to his bishopric, that the irregularly intruded bishops should be turned out, and that he should with the help of a council himself select bishops to be his coadjutors who were to be consecrated by the archbishop (Eddius, cc. 29–32). While then this decision implicitly condemned the irregular action of Theodore, it provided that his desire for the increase of the episcopate in Northumbria should be carried out in a regular manner. At another council held at Rome by Agatho on 27 March 680 against the monothelite heresy Theodore was expected, but did not attend (Gesta Pontificum, p. 7). When in that year Wilfrid returned to England, carrying with him the Roman decree for his restoration, and was imprisoned by Egfrid, Theodore seems to have made no effort on his behalf, and to have paid no attention to the decree, of which he could scarcely have been ignorant. Meanwhile Benedict Biscop, during a visit to Rome, requested Agatho to send John the precentor to England with him. Agatho seized the opportunity of eliciting from the English church a declaration of its orthodoxy, specially with reference to the monothelite question; he sent John to Theodore for that purpose, bidding him carry with him the decrees of the Lateran council of 649. In obedience to the pope's desire, Theodore held a synod of the bishops of the English church, which was attended by other learned men, at Hatfield in Hertfordshire on 17 Sept. 680, and John was given a copy of the profession of the council to carry back to the pope (Hist. Eccles. iv. cc. 17, 18).
Theodore still further increased the Northumbrian episcopate in 681 by dividing the
