In 1206, Benedict and Gerald, monks of Mellifont, were deputed by Eugene, Archbishop of Armagh, to wait on the King and to tender him, on the Archbishop's behalf, three hundred marks of silver and three of gold for restitution of the lands and liberties belonging to that See. It was the King's custom to appropriate the revenues of the vacant bishoprics, and on the confirmation by the Pope of the bishop-elect, he issued a writ of restitution of the temporalities, or episcopal possessions and rights. The King, in order to keep the temporalities the longer, often refused his "_congé d'elire_," without which an election was invalid by the civil law. Soon after the Invasion, King Henry II. held in his possession, pending the appointment of new prelates, one archbishopric, five bishoprics, and three abbeys, here in Ireland. In 1211, Thomas was Abbot, and seven years later, Carus, or Cormac O'Tarpa, Abbot, and presumably immediate successor to Thomas, was made Bishop of Achonry, which See he resigned in 1226, and returned to Mellifont, where he died that same year, and was buried there. Some two-and-one-half miles north of Mellifont, and one-half mile east of Collon, between that village and Tinure, there is a crossing of the roads still popularly known as "Tarpa's Cross." Local tradition has it that this Cormac O'Tarpa, when Abbot, was wont to walk daily from the monastery to this spot. About that time, or in 1221, Mellifont, from some unrecorded cause, fell from its first fervour, but only for a very brief period; for the remedy applied effected a thorough reform. In the Statutes of the Order for that year, the General Chapter authorised the Abbot of Clairvaux to set things right by bringing in monks from other monasteries, and so, as it were, infuse new and healthier blood into the monastic life there. As no further mention is made of the matter, the trouble, whatever its nature was, must have been permanently removed. In 1227, Luke Netterville, Archbishop of Armagh, was buried here. It was he who, three years previous, founded the Dominican monastery in Drogheda, of which, now, only the Magdalen Tower remains. And in that year (1227), Gerald, a monk of Mellifont, was elected Bishop of Dromore. In 1229, the King granted to the Abbot and Community of Mellifont a Tuesday market in their town of Collon. In 1233, the General Chapter authorised all the Abbots of the Order to have the Word of God preached on Sundays and festivals, to their servants and retainers, in some suitable place. And in 1238, the King gave a new confirmation to the monks of Mellifont.