This morning, being a ceremonial occasion, His Majesty's attire had risen to it. He wore a white silken tunic, the border richly embroidered in gold; a crimson dalmatic covered with golden stars; a mantle of blue samite, fastened on the right shoulder with a golden fermail set with a large ruby; and red hose, crossed by golden bands all up the leg. The mantle was lined with grey fur; golden lioncels decorated the fronts of the black boots; and a white samite cap, adorned with ostrich feathers, and rising out of a golden fillet, reposed on the King's head. When the members of the Council had taken their seats, and the Bishop of Lichfield had offered up sundry Latin prayers which about one in ten of the assembled company understood, the King rose to open the Council. "It is not unknown to you, venerable Fathers," he said, "for what purpose I have convened this Council. There have come into my kingdom certain persons, foreigners, from the dominions of the Emperor, who have gone about the country preaching strange doctrines, and who appear to belong to some new foreign sect. I am unwilling to do injustice, either by punishing them without investigation, or by dismissing them as harmless if they are contaminating the faith and morals of the people. But inasmuch as it appertains to holy Church to judge questions of that nature, I have here summoned you, my Fathers in God, and your clergy, that you may examine these persons, and report to me how far they are innocent or guilty of the false doctrines whereof they are suspected. I pray you therefore so to do: and as you shall report, so shall I know how to deal with them." His Majesty reseated himself, and the Bishop of the diocese rose, to deliver a long diatribe upon the wickedness of heresy, the infallibility of the Church, and the necessity for the amputation of diseased limbs of the body politic. As nobody disagreed with any of his sentiments, the harangue was scarcely necessary; but time was of small value in the twelfth century. Two other Bishops followed, with long speeches: and then the Council adjourned for dinner, the Earl of Oxford being their host. On re-assembling about eleven o'clock, the King commanded the prisoners to be brought up. Up they came, the company of thirty--men, women, and children, Gerhardt the foremost at the bar. "Who are thou?" he was asked. "I am a German named Gerhardt, born in the dominions of the Duke of Francia, an elector of the Empire." "Art thou the leader of this company?" "I am." "Wherefore earnest thou to this land?" "Long ago, in my childhood, I had read of the blessed Boniface, who, being an Englishman, travelled into Almayne to teach our people the faith of Christ. I desired to pay back to your land something of the debt we owed her, by bringing back to her the faith of Christ." "Didst thou ignorantly imagine us without it?" "I thought," replied Gerhardt in his quiet manner, "that you could scarcely have too much of it."