Page:Chronicles Of The Crusades.djvu/37

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1191.]
EARL SUMMONS A MEETING.
29

relating and complaining to all that the archbishop, the king's brother, thus landed, had been so treated and detained in prison.

Sect. 47. The archbishop was already three days in custody, and the chancellor, as soon as the case was made known to him, restored to him all his goods, and set him at liberty to depart whither soever he should desire. He wrote, moreover, to Earl John, and to all the bishops, asserting, with an oath, that the aforesaid man had suffered the above-written injuries without his knowledge. The excuse profited little, because the occasion, which had been long sought and which spontaneously offered itself against him, was most eagerly and tenaciously laid hold of. The authors of this daring act, who laid hands on the archbishop, as well as those who consented thereto, were all specially excommunicated in every church of the whole kingdom, that at least the chancellor, who was hateful to everybody, might be involved in the general malediction.

Sect. 48. Earl John, gnashing his teeth with anger against the chancellor, whom he hated, brought a weighty complaint before all the bishops and lords of the kingdom, of the infringement of the convention by the adverse party, by the arrest of his brother, to his own dishonour. The jurors are summoned and are sworn to stand by their plighted promise., and to bring it to pass as quickly as possible, that the perjurer and breaker of his faith should repair what lie had done amiss by giving ample satisfaction. The affair, hitherto continued to trifies, now bears a serious aspect; the chancellor is summoned by the powerful authority of all his and the earl's mediators, to meet him and answer to the earl's accusations, and to submit to the law, the place at Lodbridge, the day the third of the nones of October.

Sect. 49. The earl, with the greatest part of the nobility of the kingdom all favouring him, had awaited the chancellor two days at the place of meeting, and on the third, in the morning, , he sent on certain of his followers to London, still waiting at the place of meeting in case he who was expected should either dare or deign to come. The chancellor., dreading in himself the earl, and being suspicious of the judges, delayed to come to the 'place for two days; on the third (because as every one feels conscious in his mind, so does he conceive in his breast both hope and fear for his deeds), half-