THE RETURN (1170).
Source.—Roger de Hoveden, Vol. I., p. 330. Bohn's Libraries. G. Bell & Sons.
In the meantime, Louis, King of the Franks, and the archbishops, bishops, and nobles of the kingdom of France, besought the Roman Pontiff in behalf of the Archbishop of Canterbury, by the love which they bore him, and with protestations of implicit obedience, no longer to admit the excuses and delays which the King of England continually put forward, as he loved the kingdom of France and the honour of the Apostolic See. William, the bishop of Sens, also, being astonished at the desolate condition of the English Church, repaired to the Apostolic See, and obtained of the Roman Church, that, an end being put to all appeals, the King of the English should be subjected to excommunication, and his kingdom to interdict, unless peace were restored to the Church of Canterbury. Thus, at last, it pleased God, the dispenser of all things, to recompense the merits of His dearly beloved Thomas, and to crown his long labours with the victorious palm of martyrdom. He, therefore, brought the King of England to a better frame of mind, who, through the paternal exhortation of our lord the Pope, and by the advice of the King of the Franks, and of many bishops, received the archbishop again into favour, and allowed him to return to his church.