and, with candles lighted and bells ringing, all appeals and excuses, and all respect for persons on your part utterly laid aside, publicly announce as under the ban of excommunication the said earl, and all his counsellors, advisers, accomplices, and abettors in the said acts of presumptuous daring. You are also to cause them, when thus excommunicated, to be strictly avoided by all, both in their own lands as also in others which they may have invaded, and you are entirely to forbid the celebration there of divine service, except penance and the baptism of children, all obstacle thereto by appeal being entirely removed ; until such time as, the said legate having been released from confinement, as well as from the stringency of his oath, and the kingdom having been replaced in the same position in which it was left by the said long at his departure, envoys shall come to the Apostolic See, with the testimony of letters from him and from yourselves as well, for the purpose of absolution. And know for certain that if, in the execution of this our precept, you shall be negligent or remiss, we have resolved, with the help of God, to inflict upon you no less a punishment than if the said injury had been done to our own person, or to one of our brethren. Given at the Lateran, on the fourthday before the nones of December, in the first year of our Pontificate." Upon the authority, therefore, of these letters of the Supreme Pontiff, the said bishop of Ely wrote to Hugh, bishop of Lincoln, to the following effect : " William, by the grace of God, bishop of Ely, legate of the Apostolic See, and chancellor of our lord the king, to his venerable brother and most dearly beloved friend, [Hugh], by the same grace, bishop of Lincoln, health, and sincere love and affection. The more full the confidence that we feel in your affection, the greater the constancy we have found in you, so much the more confidently do we entrust to your discreetness, and to that of the Church of God, the interests of our lord the king, and our own, to be duly watched over ; putting our trust in God as to you, that your brotherly love will, in your pontifical character, show all due regard to the Apostolic precepts and our own. We do, therefore, in virtue of your obedience, enjoin, and, on the strength of the authority which has been conferred upon us, command you, that, for the purpose of performing the Apostolical mandate issued to all the archbishops and bishops of England, as also to all other your brethren whatsoever, you will with all speed convene the