No sooner was Pope Adrian seated than he struck down that Lombard faction which the gold and intrigues of Desiderius had planted at Rome. Its head was Paul Afiarta. In the very last days of Pope Stephen, he had caused the blinded Sergius to be assassinated, and banished from Rome certain judges, both of the clergy and the army, that he might have more weight in the forthcoming election. Adrian, the moment that he was elected, recalled the judges, and delivered from prison those who had been confined for the like reason. Desiderius, who desired to keep up appearances with him, sent him a solemn embassy of the three principal persons in his kingdom, Theodicius, duke of Spoleto, Tunno, duke of Ivrea, and the Lord Treasurer Prandulus. Their office was to profess friendship and alliance to the new Pope. Adrian replied:(235)—“It is my desire to have peace with all Christians, and even with your king, Desiderius, I will study to remain in that compact which was made between the Romans, the Franks, and the Lombards. But how can I trust your king in the matter in which my predecessor, Stephen, of holy memory, has spoken to me fully of his want of good faith: how he falsified everything which he promised on oath over the body of St. Peter, for the rights of holy Church, and only by his own hostile pleading, caused the eyes of Christophorus and Sergius to be put out, and worked out his own will upon those two chief men of the Church. Such is the faith of your king, Desiderius, and how can I trust in a treaty with him?” In reply, the ambassadors made oath that Desiderius would fulfil what he had promised to Pope Stephen, and broken. The Pope thereupon despatched messengers to see that Desiderius fulfilled the promise. When these reached Perugia, they found that Desiderius had already taken the city of Faenza, and the duchy of Ferrara, and was pressing Ravenna with siege. It was only two months after the accession of Pope Adrian, and presently messengers from Ravenna came supplicating his help, just as thirty years before, when pressed by the arms of Liutprand, they had recourse to Pope Zacharias. But now the exarchate was fully subject to the Pope, and called upon him as part of his own State for defence. When this conduct of Desiderius was reported to the Pope, he wrote in the gravest terms to the Lombard king, requiring him to restore the cities, and upbraiding him with the breach of those very promises which his own ambassadors had just made in his name. “The king,” he said, “had taken cities which his predecessors, Stephen II., Paul I., and Stephen III., had possessed.” Desiderius returned, for answer, “that he would not restore those cities, unless he first met the Pope”. At the same time, he had received the widow and young children of the deceased Carloman, and wanted to induce the Pope to crown them, and so create division in the Frank empire, and alienate Charles, the Patricius of Rome,