Anglo-Saxon missionaries. Boniface, like Willibrord, went to Rome to receive investiture, and the Pope conferred on him successively the titles of missionary, bishop, and archbishop. It may have been Boniface who brought the papal see into relations with the Carolingians.
The circumstances were as follows. Liutprand king of the Lombards was anxious to impose his authority on the dukes of Spoleto and Benevento and to wrest from the Byzantine Empire its last remaining possessions in Italy. He first attacked and defeated Thrasamund, duke of Spoleto, who thereupon took refuge at Rome. Liutprand demanded from Pope Gregory III the surrender of Thrasamund, and on Gregory's refusal he laid siege to the Eternal City. The Pope, in distress, sent an embassy to Charles, consisting of the bishop Anastasius and a priest named Sergius, to implore him to deliver the people of Rome from the Lombard oppression. By these ambassadors he sent to Charles "the keys of the Confession of St Peter," portions of the chains of the Prince of the Apostles and various magnificent gifts. The "keys" were a kind of decoration which the pontiffs were accustomed to confer on illustrious personages, while the chains were supposed to have miraculous virtues. This embassy impressed the imagination of contemporaries, and the continuator of Fredegar lays much stress on it. In return for the help which he implored Gregory III offered to renounce the imperial suzerainty and to confer upon the Mayor of the Palace a certain authority over Rome, with the title of Roman Consul. Gregory III seems to have had a kind of intuition of the great historic change which was afterwards to take place when the popes were to turn away from the Emperor of Byzantium and attach themselves to the king of the Franks. Charles gave the papal envoys a cordial reception (739) and showered gifts upon the Pope, sending them by the hands of Grimo, abbot of Corbie, and Sigebert, a monk of St Denis. But that was all. He could not take sides against Liutprand who had been his ally against the Arabs. In vain did Gregory write to him in 740 two imploring letters: "I adjure thee in the name of the true and living God, and by the keys of St Peter's Confession which I sent thee, not to prefer the friendship of a king of the Lombards to that of the Prince of the Apostles, but to come quickly to our aid." Charles turned a deaf ear to this new appeal, and both he and the Pope died not long after.
When he felt his end approaching, Charles divided the kingdom between his sons as if he had been sole master of it. The eldest, Carloman, received Austrasia, Alemannia, and Thuringia, with the suzerainty of Bavaria; the younger, Pepin, had for his share Neustria, Burgundy, and Provence, with the suzerainty of Aquitaine. Not long afterwards (22 October 741), Charles died at Quierzy-sur-Oise and was buried at St Denis. His grandson, Charles the Great, bore his name and closely resembled him in character; he inherited his great vigour and martial ardour, but he had a higher conception of his
