a son of Rædwald. However, the historian Steven Plunkett is amongst those that consider Ecgric to be the same person as Æthelric, named in the East Anglian tally (in the Anglian collection) as a son of Eni, Rædwald's brother. Whoever the pagan Ecgric was, Sigeberht had equal or senior power while he ruled, because the influence of his religious patronage was felt throughout his kingdom. Sigeberht's Christian conversion may have been a decisive factor in his achieving royal power, since at that time Edwin of Northumbria (616–632 or 633) was the senior English king and he and Eadbald, who ruled Kent, were Christian. Eadbald certainly had contacts with the Frankish rulers. After Dagobert succeeded Clothar II in Francia in 628, Sigeberht's emergence helped to strengthen the English conversion upon which Edwin's power rested. Sigeberht is likely to have encouraged the conversion of Ecgric, if he was not already Christian. Edwin's encouragement took shape in the marriage of his grand-niece Hereswitha, sister of Hilda of Whitby, to Æthelric, Rædwald's nephew. Hereswith and Hilda were under Edwin's protection and were baptised with him in 626. Foundation of the East Anglian bishopric Bede relates that the East Anglian apostle Felix of Burgundy came to England from Burgundy as a missionary bishop and was sent by Honorius, Archbishop of Canterbury, to assist in establishing Christianity in Sigeberht's kingdom. William of Malmesbury had the later story that Felix accompanied Sigeberht to East Anglia. In either case, this dates Sigeberht's accession to around 629–630, because Felix was bishop for seventeen years, his successor Thomas for five and Thomas' successor Berhtgisl Boniface for seventeen – and Berhtgisl died in around 669. Sigeberht established the bishop's seat of his kingdom for Felix at Dommoc, claimed variously for Dunwich or Walton, Felixstowe (both coastal sites in Suffolk). If the seat was at Walton (as Rochester claimed during the 13th century), the site of Dommoc may have been within the precinct of a Roman fort which formerly stood there. Foundation of the East Anglian school Sigeberht secured the future of the Church in East Anglia when he established a school in his kingdom so that boys could be taught reading and writing in Latin, on the model that he had witnessed in Gaul. Felix assisted him by obtaining teachers of the kind who taught in Kent. According to the Life of Gregory the Great, Paulinus of York, who from 633