subjects of bis father, who had preceded him ; however, as he thought fit to shut up everything in his own purse,48 and was unwilling to pay their wages to his soldiers, he lost the greater part of his army in several conflicts with the Irish, and being at last reduced to want [of troops], after appointing justices and distributing his knights in various places for the defence of the country, he returned to England. In the month of December, in this year, pope Lucius departed this life ; and was succeeded in the papacy by pope Urban the Third ; who immediately thereupon, in order that notice thereof might be universally given, wrote to the prelates of the Holy Church to the following effect : The Letter of pope Urban on his Election. " Urban, the bishop, servant of the servants of God, to his venerable brethren the archbishops and bishops, and to his dearly beloved sons the abbats, priors, and other prelates of churches, to whom these letters shall come, health, and the Apostolic benediction. The exalted counsels of heaven, retaining in their dispensations a constant supervision thereof, have founded the Holy Church of Rome, to the. governance whereof, insufficient as we are, we have been chosen, upon a rock which is based upon the solidity of the faith ; bestowing upon her that foundation in the strength of the Apostolic confession, that so neither the outbreaks of the storm, nor the winds of the tempest can prevail against her. "Wherefore it is that the universal Mother Church, ever retaining wit hher the Saviour, even unto the end of the world, has so, as expressed in the Song of Solomon," " embraced him whom she loved," that, by reason of no change of events or of times, can she be separated from the singleness of her faith, or the fixedness of her affection. For although, by reason of the repeated changes of her pastors as they depart, she has frequently fallen into various perils, or in consequence of the attacks of the wickedness of this world has endured persecutions and labours innumerable, still, never has the Divine favour forsaken her, any further than that she might perfect her strength in some temptation, and thence obtain the joyous fulfilment of her hope, on receiving thereby a strengthening of her faith. The Lord thus dealing towards her, within these few days as a mark of His goodness, although no slight grief and sorrow affected her for the death of the pious M* 51 He more than once alludes to the avarice of John. Probablv in allusion to eh. vii. 10.