In the second year of his seclusion, when he found that the King's heart was still hardened, the fire, not, we are assured by his followers, of resentment, but of parental love, not zeal for vengeance but for justice, burned within his soul. Henry was at this time in France. Three times the exile cited his sovereign with the tone of a superior to submit to his censure. Becket had communicated his design to his followers:--"Let us act as the Lord commanded his steward:[97] 'See, I have set thee over the nations, and over the kingdoms, to root out and to pull down, and to destroy, and to hew down, to build and to plant.'"[98] All his hearers applauded his righteous resolution. In the first message the haughty meaning was veiled in the blandest words,[99] and sent by a Cistercian of gentle demeanor, named Urban.[100] The King returned a short and bitter answer. The second time Becket wrote in severer language, but yet in the spirit, 'tis said, of compassion and leniency.[101] The King deigned no reply. His third messenger was a tattered, barefoot friar. To him Becket, it might seem, with studied insult, not only intrusted his letter to the King, but authorized the friar to speak in his name. With such a messenger the message was not likely to lose in asperity. The King returned an answer even more contemptuous than the address.[102] [SN: Nov. 11, 1165.] But this secret arraignment of the King did not content the unquiet prelate. He could now dare more, unrestrained, unrebuked. Pope Alexander had been received at Rome with open arms: at the commencement of the present year all seemed to favor his cause. The Emperor, detained by wars in Germany, was not prepared to cross the Alps. In the free cities of Italy, the anti-imperialist feeling, and the growing republicanism, gladly entered into close confederacy with a Pope at war with the Emperor. The Pontiff (secretly it should seem, it might be in defiance or in revenge for Henry's threatened revolt and for the acts of his ambassadors at Wurtzburg[103]) ventured to grant to Becket a legatine power over the King's English dominions, except the province of York. Though it was not in the power of Becket to enter those dominions, it armed him, as it was thought, with unquestionable authority over Henry and his subjects. At all events it annulled whatever restraint the Pope, by counsel or by mandate, had placed on the proceedings of Becket.[104] The Archbishop took his determination alone.[105] As though to throw an awful mystery about his plan, he called his wise friends together, and consulted them on the propriety of resigning his see. With one voice they rejected the timid counsel. Yet though his most intimate followers were in ignorance of his designs, some intelligence of a meditated blow was betrayed to Henry. The King summoned an assembly of prelates at Chinon. The Bishops of Lisieux and Seez, whom the Archbishop of Rouen, Rotran, consented to accompany as a mediator, were dispatched to