ed his government in that city; and the ambassadors,
who, from a distant extremity of Europe, carried to him the humble or
rather abject submissions of the greatest potentate of the age, found
the utmost difficulty to make their way to him, and to throw
themselves at his feet. It was at length agreed, that Richard Barre,
one of their number, should leave the rest behind, and run all the
hazards of the passage [z]; in order to prevent the fatal consequences
which might ensue from any delay in giving satisfaction to his
holiness. He found, on his arrival, that Alexander was already
wrought up to the greatest rage against the king; that Becket's
partisans were daily stimulating him to revenge; that the king of
France had exhorted him to fulminate the most dreadful sentence
against England; and that the very mention of Henry's name before the
sacred college was received with every expression of horror and
execration. The Thursday before Easter was now approaching, when it
is customary for the pope to denounce annual curses against all his
enemies; and it was expected that Henry should, with all the
preparations peculiar to the discharge of that sacred artillery, be
solemnly comprehended in the number. But Barre found means to appease
the pontiff, and to deter him from a measure, which, if it failed of
success, could not afterwards be easily recalled: the anathemas were
only levelled in general against all the actors, accomplices, and
abettors of Becket's murder. The Abbot of Valasse, and the
Archdeacons of Salisbury and Lisieux, with others of Henry's
ministers, who soon after arrived, besides asserting their prince's
innocence, made oath before the whole consistory that he would stand
to the pope's judgment in the affair, and make every submission that
should be required of him. The terrible blow was thus artfully
eluded; the Cardinals Albert and Theodin were appointed legates to
examine the cause, and were ordered to proceed to Normandy for that
purpose; and though Henry's foreign dominions were already laid under
an interdict by the Archbishop of Sens, Becket's great partisan, and
the pope's legate in France, the general expectation that the monarch
would easily exculpate himself from any concurrence in the guilt, kept
every one in suspense, and prevented all the bad consequences which
might be dreaded from that sentence.
[FN [y] Hoveden, p. 526. M. Paris, p. 87. [z] Hoveden, p. 26.
Epist. St. Thom. p. 863.]

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