A.D, 1272, THEOBALD ELECTED POPE. 455 King Henry left behind him both sons and daughters, namely, Edward, Margaret, Edmund, Beatrice, and Catharine. The Irish haying encountered the English in a pitched battle, were put to flight and slain. Edmund, son of the late king, and younger than prince Edward, returning from the Holy Land, was received by the English with great honour. After the death of pope Clement, the Apostolic See was vacant for two years and ten months. Therefore, the cardinals assembled together, and unanimously elected the lord Theobald, archdeacon of Liege, who was at the time in the countries beyond the sea with Edward. And he, having heard the news of his election, hastened to the court, and was invested with the dignity of supreme pontiff. On him the following verses were composed :— " An archdeacon beyond all hope Is now suddenly made pope, Through the quarrels of the brothers Being set above the others." He, at his first entrance on his office, sent general letters to all the nations of Christendom, about the assembling a council on the first of May, in the year of grace twelve hundred and seventy-two, on which account it was said of him— " Gregory assembles all the world again." This year, when Edward had been a long time waiting in Acre for aid from the Christians and the Tartars, because he had formed the design of overwhelming the Saracens with a mighty force, seeing that he was deceived by both parties, because the Christians had returned to their own land, and because the Tartars, who are also called Moallians, were perishing under domestic tyranny ; he dismissed all his mercenary forces at Acre, and crossed the sea, and landed in the kingdom of Sicily ; where he was met with honour by king Charles, who conducted him to Civite Vecchia, where the Roman court was residing, and where Edward related to pope Gregory, who was now become his lord, from having lately been his friend, all the perils of the Holy Land. After which he requested him to condemn by his formal sentence the count Aldebrand, surnamed le Rus, and Guy de Montfort, who, with their wicked swords, had murdered Henry, the eldest son of the king of Germany, and his own kinsman, at Viterbo. So the pope immediately sent for them. The comte le Rus