of the castles, or territory, should be restored, which had come under the power of the empress or of any of her faithful adherents, since the capture of the king: but he could not by any means obtain the release of his friends, as he had given offence to some persons, in rejecting, with a kind of superciliousness their magnificent promises with respect to the government of the whole kingdom. And as they were extremely anxious that, for the royal dignity, the king should be first set at liberty, and then the earl; when he demurred to this, the legate and the archbishop made oath, that if the king, after his own liberation, refused to release the earl, they would forthwith deliver themselves up into Robert's power, to be conducted wherever he pleased. Nor did he rest here; for his sagacious mind discovered an additional security. It might fall out, that the king, as often happens, listening to evil counsel, would consider the detention of his brother, and of the archbishop, as of very little consequence, so that he himself were at his ease. He demanded, therefore, from them both, separately, instruments, with their seals, addressed to the pope, to the following effect; "That the sovereign pope was to understand, that they, for the liberation of the king and the peace of the kingdom, had bound themselves to the earl by this covenant, that, if the king refused to liberate him after his own release, themselves would willingly surrender to his custody. Should it, therefore, come to this calamitous issue, they earnestly entreated, what it would well become the papal goodness voluntarily to perform, that he would release them, who were his suffragans, as well as the earl, from unjustifiable durance." There was something more to the same effect.
These writings, received from either prelate, Robert deposited in a place of safety, and came to Winchester with them and a great company of the barons. The king also, as has been before observed, coming thither soon after, had a friendly interview with the earl. But although he, and all the earls present, eagerly busied themselves in bringing over Robert to their wishes, yet, "firm as a rock amid the ocean" in his resistance, he rendered their attempts abortive, or refuted them by argument. He affirmed, that, it was neither reasonable nor natural, that he should desert his sister, whose cause he had justly espoused, not for any benefit to himself, nor so
