been entertained both by St Anselm and by St Thomas. At this the pope caught him up and said: 'Stay, brother, stay: did St Thomas wish to build a church in his own honour?' In this way the debate went on for several days.
From the correspondence which passed at this time between the Canterbury monks and their envoys we learn a little more. Peter's high tone, says one writer, did our cause more good than harm.[1] Another report declared that, when Peter had urged in the king's name that the building of the church should be allowed to proceed, the pope had said: 'What has the king to do with it?' This Peter had retailed in a letter to the king, making him furious with rage.[2]
The archbishop's envoys, notwithstanding their ill success with the pope, remained at Verona. They were not without friends among the cardinals: Albert the chancellor in particular gave them courage: 'Wait', said he, 'wait: the next pope will revise all that is being done'. In England the papal letters were unavailing. When the bishop of Bath and others were commissioned to carry them into effect, Ranulf de Glanville the justiciar interposed in the king's name, and the commission was forbidden to proceed. The papal court now moved to Ferrara. Peter, who claimed to have been an old fellow-student of the pope, rode by his side and harped on the merits of the archbishop, until the pope passionately exclaimed: ' May I never dismount from this horse, or mount this or any other again, if I do not put out that archbishop from his see.' At that moment, Peter tells us, the cross-bearer stumbled and the papal cross was broken off from its staff. That night the pope was taken ill, and could only with difficulty be brought on to Ferrara in a barge: he never rode a horse again. On 3 October he despatched a new series of letters, enforcing his commands on the archbishop and the commission, and imploring the king not to interfere. But death had set its mark on him. On 19 October 1187 Urban III was gone, and two days later Albert the chancellor became Pope Gregory VIII. This great man, who sat for less than two months in the papal chair, inaugurated a new policy of reconciliation. The last days of his predecessor had been darkened by the tidings of the capture of the king of Jerusalem and the loss of the True Cross: the fate of Jerusalem itself was still unknown, though in fact it had fallen on 3 October. A letter written by Peter of Blois to K. Henry tells of the determination of the new pope and his cardinals to command a universal truce of seven years under the severest penalties
