While Tostig was trying his strength on the coast of Northumbria with a band of adventurers, William, careful to have on his side all the appearances of right, sent a message to Harold as follows:--"William, duke of Normandy, reminds you of the oath which you swore with your own lips and with your hand upon good and holy relics." "It is true," answered Harold, "but I swore under constraint, not being free, and I promised what did not belong to me; besides, my services belong to my country, and I could not give up my position to anybody else without its consent, nor marry a strange woman. As to my sister, whom the duke claims for one of his chiefs, she died during this year. Does he wish me to send her body to him?" A second message, still calm and moderate, urged Harold at least to marry the Norman princess; but the king answered that he would not do so, and soon afterwards he chose a Saxon wife, a sister of Edwin and Morcar, the two sons of Elfgar, count of Mercia. William's anger at length burst forth, and, reproaching Harold bitterly for his perjury, he declared that he would come before the end of the year to exact payment of the whole of his debt and to pursue the perfidious Saxon even into the places wherein he considered his hold to be firmest. While awaiting the help of his allies from the North, William was aware of the importance of conciliating public opinion in Europe, or at least in that portion of Europe where the people were not altogether ignorant of what was happening in England and in Normandy. No influence was stronger than that of the Church for obtaining the good will of the people. The English were not in favor at Rome. {91} They had refused to receive Robert of Jumièges, a Norman priest, brought up in Canterbury by Edward the Confessor, who had been appointed to a high position by the Pope, and the Saxon Stigand, who was still under excommunication from Rome, under pretence that he had been guilty of simony, was chosen in his stead. The Saxon Church had often shown itself to be somewhat undisciplined, and the clergy had been accused of laxity in performing their duties. William caused these facts to be represented at Rome, besides employing many other arguments. He had sent Lanfranc there, a priest of Italian extraction, whom he had made abbot of St. Stephen's at Caen, and who by reason of his clever and prudent mind was enabled to render important services to his master. Harold had sent no ambassador to this tribunal, whose jurisdiction he did not recognize in temporal affairs; his perjury was strongly denounced there, and Pope Alexander II. declared that William of Normandy, cousin of King Edward, and consequently his heir, could legitimately style himself king of England and seize upon the kingdom. The king received this permission sealed by the Pope, with a holy standard and a ring containing a hair of St. Peter enclosed in a diamond.