After placing his queen and his eldest son in safety in Corfe castle,[1081] John had taken ship, seemingly about August 24, at Southampton or Portsmouth, and sailed round the coast to Sandwich, where he appears to have landed on the 28th.[1082] The barons in London, if we may believe the report of the chroniclers, were foolish enough to imagine that he would never land again at all.[1083] They were now taking upon themselves, in all those counties where their power was strong enough, to supersede both the sheriffs and the justices and usurp their functions, parcelling out the country among members of their own body, each of whom was to act as the chief judicial and administrative authority in the district committed to him.[1084] In their premature triumph they were even beginning to talk of choosing a new sovereign, and of calling the whole baronage of England to a council for that purpose, “since this ought to be done by the common consent of the whole realm.”[1085] Early in September, however, the revolutionists awoke from their dreams to find that the king was safe in Dover castle, surrounded by a little band of foreign soldiers who had already joined him there, and awaiting the coming of the host which was gathering for him beyond the sea.[1086] The three executors of the papal mandate were meanwhile insisting that now, at any rate, the barons had unquestionably fallen under its terms, by endeavouring to expel the king from his realm; and they excommunicated by name several of the revolutionary leaders, together with the citizens of London, whom they placed under interdict. These sentences, however, were disregarded, on the plea that they were barred by a previous appeal to the general council[1087] which was to be held at Rome on All Saints’ Day, and which most of the English bishops were preparing to attend. Archbishop Stephen was about to set forth, in the middle of September, when two of the papal commissioners--Pandulf and Bishop Peter of Winchester--went to him in person and insisted that he should enforce the publication of the Pope’s sentence throughout his own diocese on all the appointed days, and order his suffragans to do the same. Stephen answered that he would take no further steps in the matter till he had spoken of it with the Pope himself, since he believed the sentence to be grounded on a misunderstanding of the facts of the case. On this Pandulf and Peter denounced him as disobedient to the Pope’s mandate, and, in accordance with its terms, suspended him from his office.[1088]