518 ANNALS OP B0GEE DE HOVEDEN". A.D. 1169. would never take a wife. In his days God wrought many wondrous things in his behalf in the land of Jerusalem. For although he was afflicted with leprosy, still, a multitude of the pagans was repeatedly routed by him and utterly destroyed. This Baldwin the Leper, by the advice of his chief men, sent for William, the marquis of Montferrat, and gave him to wife his sister, Sibylla, together with the earldom of Joppa. This marquis William had by Sibylla, his wife, one son, named Baldwin, whom Baldwin the Leper made his heir, and abdicating the kingdom, gave it to this youth Baldwin, his nephew, and caused him to be crowned. Shortly after, the marquis William, the father of the youth Baldwin, who was now king, departed this life, and Sibylla, his wife, the mother of the king, married the above-named Guido de Lusignan. Shortly after this, king Baldwin the Leper died, and the youth Baldwin, his nephew, reigned in his stead two years and a half. Guido de Lusignan, the earl of Joppa, gave Miliecnt, his wife's sister, in marriage to Amfrid de Tours. In the year of grace 1169, being the fifteenth year of the reign of king Henry, son of the empress Matilda, Nigel, bishop of Ely, departed this life ; Godfrey of Finchale, a venerable recluse and holy monk, also departed unto the Lord. Tu the same year, Henry, king of England, fearing that the blessed Thomas, the archbishop of Canterbury, would pronounce sentence of excommunication against his own person, and lay an interdict on his kingdom, appealed in behalf of himself and his kingdom, to the presence of the Supreme Pontiff; and sending envoys to him, requested that he would send one or two legates a latere to England, to enquire into the dispute which existed between him and Thomas, the archbishop of Canterbury, and terminate it to the honor of God and of the Holy Church; and also that the persons above-named, whom the archbishop of Canterbury had excommunicated, might in the meantime be absolved. Wherefore our lord the pope wrote to the following effect : The Letter of pope Alexander to Henry, king of England. "Alexander the bishop, servant of the servants of God, to Henry, the illustrious king of the English, health and the Apostolic benediction. The envoys sent by your mightiness,