you, or your kingdom, or any person in your realm, we do pronounce the same to be null and void, and not in any way to affect you. To put an end to such a course, and as a proof of our wishes, you are, in case necessity shall arise for so doing, to produce this present letter. But, otherwise, we do beg of your serene highness, and strongly recommend you, not to let this letter or the tenor thereof be known to any person whatsoever, but to keep it entirely secret. And as for those persons of your household and your advisers, whom the said archbishop has already subj ected to sentence of excommunication, the parties sent by us will, with the Lord's assistance, absolve them. But if, in the meantime, any one of them shall be in fear of immediate death, we do grant that he may be absolved by any bishop, or religious and discreet man, on the oath being administered to him, according to the custom of the Church, that if he shall recover he will consider himself bound to obey our mandates." Upon this, the above-mentioned legates of our lord the pope having arrived in Normandy, certain of the suffragans of the church of Canterbury wrote to the following effect :— " Cure is preferable to complaint. But, our sins requiring the same, our holy mother the Church has been placed between the hammer and the anvil, and, unless the Divine mercy shall look down upon her, will shortly feel the blow of that hammer. For, the wickedness of the schismatics waxing strong, for defending his faith and for his love of justice, our father has been exiled by our other father from his country, and the hardened mind of Pharaoh forbids him liberty to return to his see. Added to this, in things spiritual as well as in things temporal the church of Canterbury is sadly impoverished. Like a ship upon the sea deprived of her pilot, she is buffeted to and fro, and is exposed to the winds, while, by the royal authority, her shepherd is forbidden to remain within the territories of his own country. He, wise though he may be, at his own peril and that of his Church, as also of ourselves, has, together with himself, exposed us to the bitterness of penalties and of labours; not reflecting that to use soothing methods will not detract from his own power. And further, although with all our affections we sympathize with his sufferings, he has proved ungrateful towards us, and, although we are in the same condemnation, ceases not to persecute us. For, between himself and the most serene king of the English, a certain controversy arose :