Three years before, he had wrung from the Pope--then blockaded in Rome by the Imperial troops, and in the last extremity of peril--a brief authorizing young Henry’s coronation by the archbishop of York, in default of the absent primate of all England.[300] In face of a mass of earlier and later rescripts from Alexander’s predecessors and Alexander himself, all strenuously confirming the exclusive privileges of Canterbury, Henry had never yet ventured to make use of this document; like Adrian’s bull for the conquest of Ireland, it had been kept in reserve for a future day; and that day had now come. In vain did Thomas proclaim his threatened interdict;[301] in vain did the Pope ratify it;[302] in vain did both alike issue prohibitions to all the English bishops against the act which they knew to be in contemplation.[303] The vigilance of the justiciars, quickened by a fresh set of stringent injunctions sent over by the king in the previous autumn,[304] made the delivery of letters from either primate or Pope so difficult that Thomas at last could intrust it to no one but a nun, Idonea, whom he solemnly charged with the duty of presenting to Roger of York the papal brief in which the coronation was forbidden.[305] The ceremony was fixed for Sunday, June 14. A week before that date young Henry, who with his girl-bride Margaret of France had been left at Caen under the care of his mother and Richard of Hommet the constable of Normandy, was summoned to join his father in England.[306] On S. Barnabas’s day the bishops and barons assembled at Westminster in obedience to the royal summons;[307] on Saturday, the 13th, the Pope’s letter was at last forced upon the archbishop of York;[308] but none the less did he on the following morning crown and anoint young Henry in Westminster abbey; while Gilbert of London, who had managed to extort conditional absolution in the Pope’s name from Archbishop Rotrou of Rouen,[309] once more stood openly by his side in the foremost rank of the English bishops.[310] [300] Ep. cccx. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. vi. pp. 206, 207). See the editor’s note as to the date. [301] Epp. dclxxviii.–dclxxxiii. (_ib._ vol. vii. pp. 320–325). [302] Epp. dcxxviii.–dcxxx. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. vii. pp. 210–214). [303] Epp. dcxxxii., dcxxxiii., dcxlviii.–dcli. (_ib._ pp. 216, 217, 256–264). Herb. Bosh. (_ib._ vol. iii.), p. 462, puts this interdict too late. [304] The “ten ordinances”; Ep. dxcix. (_ib._ vol. vii. pp. 147–149); Will. Cant. (_ib._ vol. i.), pp. 53–55; Gerv. Cant. (Stubbs), vol. i. pp. 214–216; Rog. Howden (Stubbs), vol. i. pp. 231–236; on the date see Bishop Stubbs’s note at last reference. [305] Ep. dclxxii. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. vii. pp. 307–309). See the editor’s note. [306] Ep. dclxxiii. (_ibid._), pp. 309, 312. [307] _Gesta Hen._ (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 5.