A.D. 1169. LETTER OF POPE ALEXANDER TO KING HENRY namely, our well-beloved sons Robert Cumin and Ralph de Tameworde,85 persons devoted to ourselves and to the Church of God, and, as we believe, most faithful servants to your royal highness, together with the letter which your excellency transmitted unto us by their hands, we have received with the more kindly feelings, and have with the greater favour and honor granted the prayer thereof, the more fully we were sensible that they had been sent by a mighty prince and most Christian king : to whom, indeed, we wish, so far as with the will of God we may, all glory and honor ; and whose advantage, in every way in which we becomingly may, both we and our brethren and the whole Church wish for the more ardently, the more that in our greatest necessity we have experienced your most devoted sincerity towards us. For our memory at no time hereafter will be able possibly to lose the recollection of the marks of duty shown to us by you at a time so opportune, nor wiR they by any lapse of time be overshadowed in the sight of the ehurch. "We have thought proper to send certain persons as legates a latere, according to your request, although it seemed to us most inconvenient and most difficult at this time to part with any, when we are standing in need of the presence and counsel of our brethren, and especially of those whom you require, being not unmindful however, as we have akeady mentioned, of your praiseworthy and distinguished dutifulness to us. These we have thought fit to send to the presence of your highness, with full powers to take cognizance of and give judgment upon the ecclesiastical matters which are the subject of dispute between you and our venerable brother, the archbishop of Canterbury, as also, the controversy which exists between the said archbishop and the bishops of your kingdom with regard to the appeal made unto ourselves, and such other matters in dispute in your kingdom as they shall be enabled to bring to a satisfactory conclusion, and, according as the Lord shall give them His assistance therein, to terminate the same in a canonical manner. AVe shaR by all means also forbid the said archbishop in any way to attempt to molest, or disturb, or disquiet either yourseR, or your people, or the kingdom entrusted to your government, until these matters in dispute shall have been brought to a legitimate conclusion. But, if the aforesaid archbishop shaB, in the meantime, pronounce any sentence upon a Taimvorlh.