Within a few months, however, the king again took up his cherished scheme with renewed eagerness and hope. “Lord of Ireland” was the title which John had assumed during his visit to that country,[89] as it was the title by which Henry had claimed authority over the Irish princes; but ever since 1177 Henry had been planning to secure for his son a more definite basis of power, by having him crowned and anointed as king. For this the Pope’s permission was necessary; Alexander III. was said to have granted it,[90] but his grant seems never to have been embodied in a bull, and Lucius III., who succeeded him in 1181, absolutely refused to sanction Henry’s project. When Lucius died, in November 1185, Henry at once despatched an embassy to his successor, Urban III., “and from him he obtained many things which Pope Lucius had strongly resisted; of which things this was one, that whichever of his sons he might choose should be crowned and anointed king of Ireland.”[91] This grant Urban is said to have confirmed by a bull, and by sending to Henry a crown of peacock’s feathers set in gold.[92] Bull and crown were probably brought by two legates who are expressly described as commissioned by Urban as legates for Ireland, “to crown John king of that country.” But these envoys did not reach England till Christmas Eve 1186;[93] and meanwhile, in August, news had come that “a certain Irishman had cut off the head of Hugh de Lacy,” whereupon Henry bade John proceed at once to Ireland and seize Hugh’s vast estates there.[94] John, however, was still in England when the legates arrived; possibly his father detained him on learning that they were actually on their way. But they had no sooner landed than they offended Archbishop Baldwin of Canterbury by wearing their mitres and having their crosses carried before them in his cathedral church; and they repeated the insult in the king’s court, to the great indignation of Baldwin and his suffragans.[95] Under these circumstances it would obviously have been impossible to let them crown John in Baldwin’s province; and if Henry entertained any idea of sending them and John to Ireland together, that the rite might be performed there, he speedily abandoned it. Baldwin, in fact, to rid himself of the legates, advised the king to employ them in France, as mediators in the disputes which were arising between Henry and Philip Augustus out of the death of Geoffrey of Britanny, the minority of Geoffrey’s daughter, and the critical condition of his widow. Henry accepted the suggestion, sent John to Normandy instead of to Ireland,[96] and himself followed with the legates on February 17 (1187).[97] [Sidenote: 1187]