A.D. 1166. BISHOP GILBERT'S LETTEE TO THE POPE. 283 of sincere affection and the service of humble obedience. Your mandate, dearest father in Christ, has been received by us with due veneration, immediately on whieh, we presented ourselves before your son, and our dearest lord, the illustrious king of the English, who is now at the head of his army in the French territory ; and, in conjunction with our venerable brother, the bishop of Hereford, we diligently and carefully admonished him according to the tenor of your mandate. We set before his eyes all the particulars of your letter, and, beseeching him and expostulating with him as far as was becoming towards his royal 'majesty, we constantly and incessantly exhorted him that he would satisfy us as to his purposes, and that, if he had in any way departed from the paths of reasonableness, he would not delay, at your admonition, through us, to return to the ways of truth and justice ; that, following the pious admonition of his father, he would desist from all evil actions, would love God with purity of heart, and would regard with his usual veneration his holy mother, the Roman Church ; that he would neither impede those who wished to visit her, nor prevent appeals being made to her ; that benignly recalling and restoring our brother, the lord archbishop of Canterbury, to his see, he would remain firm and immoveable in his reverence for Saint Peter and yourself, and that, giving his entire attention to works of piety, he would not oppress either the churches or ecclesiastical persons in his realm or in his territories, nor yet allow them to be oppressed by his means or those of another ; but, on the contrary, diligently preserve them under his royal protection, to the end that He, through whom kings reign, might preserve for him his temporal kingdom while on earth, and bestow on him an eternal one in heaven : that otherwise, if he would not listen to those wholesome counsels, your Holiness, who has hitherto patiently borne with him, could no longer bear with him in your long-suffering. We further added, that we greatly feared for him, that if he did not correct his faults, he would before long incur the wrath of Almighty God ; so much so, that his kingdom would not be of long continuance, nor his family allowed to prosper ; but that He who had exalted him when humble, would now, when exalted, hurl him down with a heavy fall from the summit of the throne. On this, he received your admonition