Pope Innocent, in the course of the year, sent a peremptory mandate to the Archbishop of Canterbury to fulminate the curse of excommunication against all those who had participated in the prelate's murder: but the Archbishop did not dare to execute the mandate; for both the King and a large body of the nobility were implicated more or less directly in Scrope's execution, and must have been involved in the same general sentence. The King, on hearing of the decided countenance thus (p. 211) given by the Pope to his rebellious subjects, despatched a messenger to Rome, conveying the military vest of the Archbishop, and charged him to present it to his Holiness; delivering at the same time, as his royal master's message, the words of Jacob's sons, "Lo! this have we found; know now whether it be thy son's coat, or no." A passage in Hardyng seems to imply that, during the life of Henry IV, the devotions of the people to this warrior bishop were forbidden; for he records, apparently with approbation, the permission granted by his son Henry V, to all persons to make their offerings at the shrine of their sainted prelate: "He gave then, of good devotion, All men to offer to Bishop Scrope express, Without letting or any question." "Before the end of the next month (June),[206] Henry was engaged in besieging the Earl of Northumberland's castles; and in a letter to the council, dated Warkworth, on the 2nd of July, he informed them that Prudhoe Castle had immediately surrendered: but that the Castle of Warkworth, being well garrisoned, refused to obey his summons; the captain having declared as his final answer that he would defend it for the Earl. The King had therefore ordered his artillery to be brought against it, which were so ably served, that at the seventh (p. 212) discharge the besieged implored his mercy, and the fortress was delivered into his hands on the 1st of July. All the other castles had imitated the example of Prudhoe, excepting Alnwick, which he was then about to attack." [Footnote 206: This is extracted from the Preface of Sir Harris Nicolas, p. 56.]