your presence is pouring forth tears that drop blood, and sprinkled with bitterness, because she has been set up as a mark for the arrow, and has been made a reproach unto her neighbours. And those who behold her, wag their heads at her and say, where is their God ? But she weeping and turning back, is crying aloud in the ears of the Lord of Hosts, 'Avenge, Ο Lord, the blood of thy servant and martyr, the archbishop of Canterbury, who has been slain, nay, crucified, for the liberties of the Church ! Holy father ! a thing horrible to be mentioned, a disgraceful crime, an enormous piece of flagitiousness has been perpetrated in your days ; a thing at which both the ears shall tingle of each that shall hear of it, the like of which has not been heard in Theman,2 and has not been seen in Canaan. For another Herod, of the seed of Canaan and not of Judah, the offspring of vipers, sending his lictors from his side, has not been struck with horror at scarring with deep wounds the sign of the passion of our Lord, which he carried on his head, and at disfiguring with shameful marks the heavenly likeness. By reason whereof, as all the Church affirms, the cause and the penalty equally make him to be a martyr. The penalty is our grief, for the sufferings inflicted on him : the cause was the rigour of the ecclesiastical censure, because he contended for the law of his God even unto the death. It is therefore your part, Ο most merciful father, keeper of the walls of Jerusalem, to apply a remedy to what is past, and to employ foresight for the future. For what place is there that can be safe, if the rage of a tyrant is to stain with blood the Holy of Holies? And is it with impunity to tear in pieces the vicegerents of Christ, the fosterchildren of the Church ? Let then the ecclesiastical laws arousef themselves, let ecclesiastical rights put on their armour. Let the vengeance for the blood of this glorious martyr, which cries aloud from England, enter into your presence. For cry aloud it will, and will arouse not only the earth but the heavens as well. And so consult for healing our sorrows, that you consult both for your own good name and the liberties of the Church. As to the rest, we have thought proper to inform the fatherly affection of your Holiness, that whereas you gave it as your command both to the lord archbishop of llouen and to ourselves, that we should place under an interdict the 1 A city of Edom, near Arabia Petrsca.