A.D. 1164. EARTHQUAKE IN SICJXT. 261 When the king saw that he could not by these means attain his object, he ordered a written copy of these laws to be made, and gave a duplicate of it to the archbishop of Canterbury, which he, in spite of the prohibition of the whole of the clergy, received from the king's hand, and fcirning to the clergy, exclaimed, " Courage, brethren ! by means of this writing we shall be enabled to discover the evil intentions of the king, and against whom we ought to be on our guard;" after which he retired from the court, and was unable by any means to recover the king's favour. And because he had acted unad-visedly in this matter,81 he suspended himself from the celebra-tion of divine service from that hour, until such time as he himself, or his messenger, should have spoken thereon with our lord the pope. After this, there came to England Rotrod, archbishop of Rouen, on behalf of our lord the pope, for the purpose of effecting a reconciliation between the king and the archbishop of Canterbury ; to which, however, the king would on no ac-count consent, unless our lord the pope should, by his bull, confirm those laws. When this could be in nowise effected, the king sent John of Oxford and Geoffrey Riddel, his clerks, to pope Alexander, requesting him to give the legateship of the whole of England to Roger, that archbishop of York, that so through his means he might be able to confound the arch-bishop of Canterbury. But our lord the pope would not, as to this part of it, listen to the king's request. However, upon the petition of the king's clerks, our lord the pope conceded that the king himself should be legate for the whole of Eng-land; on such terms, however, that he could do nothing offen-sive to the archbishop of Canterbury. The king, on seeing his, in his indignation sent back to our lord the pope the otters appointing him legate, which John of Oxford and Geoffrey Riddel had brought. In the same year, on the vigil of Saint Agatha, the virgin and martyr, a great earthquake took place in the island of Sicily ; so much so, that the city of Catania was utterly de-stroyed, and the bishops and clergy, and all the inhabitants of the city, perished ; tìiìrty thousand fighting men, in fact, be-sides women and children, which could not be numbered. On the same day, after the destruction of the city of Catania, the 31 Ια taking the oath.