Convinced by experience how little was to be gained by struggling with the formidable power which humbled the greatest monarchs, Swerro now applied to the pope for absolution and pardon. He was directed, in the first instance, to make his peace with the archbishop, who alone could intercede for him. Incensed at the reply, and fearful lest the people should desert him because he had not been crowned, he convoked his bishops, and prevailed on one of them—a mere court tool—to perform the ceremony. To anoint an apostate priest would not have been within the bounds even of papal authority: penance and absolution were previously indispensable; but neither were exacted, and if they had been, the censure could only have been removed by the supreme pontiff. The bishop who performed a ceremony in its very nature null was excommunicated; and the king’s own excommunication was confirmed. In this emergency, Swerro convoked an Al-Thing at Bergen, where a resolution was passed to send deputies to Rome to procure his absolution. On their return they all died in Denmark—no doubt through poison. They brought no absolution; but a confirmation of the former sentence. For this instrument the king, who was capable of any act, substituted another, which contained a plenary remission, and which he declared was the one brought from the head of the church. To account for the death of his messengers, he asserted that they had been poisoned by his enemies lest the papal absolution should reach him. The benefits of this deception he could not long hope to enjoy. Alexander III. charged him with both the forgery and the murder, and placed the whole kingdom under an interdict. Even the bishop, Nicholas, who had crowned him now escaped into Denmark, to join the metropolitan; and both were nobly entertained by archbishop Absalom, primate and minister of that kingdom. [Sidenote: 1194 to 1202.]