502 MATTHEW 0 7 WESTMOTSTEB. A.D.1294. by the favour of God landed in England safe and sound. And being conducted into the king's presence, they were admitted with great ceremony, and opening their stores they offered him their precious gifts ; and, what was still more acceptable to the king, they presented him with letters from their sovereign, sealed with the royal ring and seal. In which letters it is said to have been written, that whenever the king of England should march his army against the king of France, the king of Arragon, not forgetting the injuries which had been inflicted on his father and his kingdom by the father of the king of France, would hasten with a powerful army of well-appointed knights, to avenge himself and to subdue the armies of the French. And when the king heard this, he rejoiced, and introducing the ambassadors into his palace, he ordered them to be treated with every possible courtesy. And when they had stayed there some days, and had been abundantly requited from out of the king's treasury, having received an answer from the king, and having been advised not to return back by the way by which they came, they returned to the kingdom of Arragon by another road. After these events, Edward, king of England, sent the archbishop of Dublin, and the bishop of Durham, and some of the more powerful barons of his kingdom, to the king of Germany, with royal gifts and valuable presents, in order that he, who was not previously connected with him by any affinity, might now at a fitting season be united with him in an indissoluble treaty, by virtue of the symbol of the cross. And after these ambassadors had crossed the sea, and had been honourably received by the king, a measure which was assisted, or indeed I may say brought about, by a sum of a hundred thousand pounds sterling, and so when every obstacle and difficulty having been removed, the work for which they had come prospered very well in their hands. And so it came to pass, that the two sovereigns entered upon and ratified an agreement, and became friends and respectively dear to one another, namely, the king of England and the king of Germany, who were previously unknown and strangers to one another. And the ambassadors of the king of England, having bade farewell to the king of Germany, returned with joy to England, and reported what they had done in that country to the king of England. At that time, also, namely, on the second Sunday in the month of July, a horrible investigation and most exe