This brief was carried to the emperor by a messenger of inferior rank; who, moreover, did not wait for an answer, but disappeared as soon as he had delivered it. This is asserted by some to have been meant as an insult to Frederic, who, at any rate, took care to view it as such. Adrian, however, was surely of too lofty a character to descend to such a petty act of spleen; and it is far more likely that the messenger, aware of what sort of letter he was carrying, and to what sort of person, did not care, under the circumstances, to do more than his bare errand; but, that done, to save himself, hastened from the very possible consequences to his poor limbs of the first ebullitions of the imperial wrath. Be that as it may, Frederic determined to let the pope see that he too could act as meanly and spitefully as it was pretended his Holiness had acted; and, accordingly, he gave his secretary orders to set in his reply the name of the emperor before that of the pope, who, at the same time, was to be addressed in the second person singular; contrary to etiquette, which, even in that age, required the plural number to be used towards persons of high rank. To this insolence of Frederic, Adrian rejoined shortly and pithily, rating him for his irreverence to the Holy See and to St. Peter, demonstrating to him how his present conduct belied his former oaths, and warning him lest, in seizing that which had not been given to him, he should lose that which had. Frederic, conscious of the grave nature of his crimes against the Holy See, but so long as fortune favoured him, obstinate in his pride and deaf to religious reproach, retorted Adrian's reproof more audaciously than ever.