In the meantime, Louis, King of the Franks, and the archbishops, bishops, and nobles of the kingdom of France, besought the Roman Pontiff in behalf of the Archbishop of Canterbury, by the love which they bore him, and with protestations of implicit obedience, no longer to admit the excuses and delays which the King of England continually put forward, as he loved the kingdom of France and the honour of the Apostolic See. William, the bishop of Sens, also, being astonished at the desolate condition of the English Church, repaired to the Apostolic See, and obtained of the Roman Church, that, an end being put to all appeals, the King of the English should be subjected to excommunication, and his kingdom to interdict, unless peace were restored to the Church of Canterbury. Thus, at last, it pleased God, the dispenser of all things, to recompense the merits of His dearly beloved Thomas, and to crown his long labours with the victorious palm of martyrdom. He, therefore, brought the King of England to a better frame of mind, who, through the paternal exhortation of our lord the Pope, and by the advice of the King of the Franks, and of many bishops, received the archbishop again into favour, and allowed him to return to his church. BECKET'S LIFE (1170). +Source.+--_Roger de Hoveden_, Vol. I., p. 333. Bohn's Libraries. G. Bell & Sons. As for his life, it was perfectly unimpeachable before God and man. To arise before daybreak did not seem to him a vain thing, as he knew that the Lord has promised a crown to the watchful. For every day he arose before daybreak, while all the rest were asleep, and entering his oratory would pray there for a long time; and then returning, he would awake his chaplains and clerks from their slumbers, and, the matins and the hours of the day being chaunted, devoutly celebrate the mass; and every day and night he received three or five flagellations from the hand of a priest. After the celebration of the mass, every day he re-entered his oratory, and, shutting the door after him, devoted himself to prayer with abundant tears; and no one but God alone knew the manner in which he afflicted his flesh. And thus did he do daily unto his flesh until the hour for dining, unless some unusual solemnity or remarkable cause prevented it. On coming forth from his oratory, he would come to dine among his people, not that he might sate his body with costly food, but that he might make his household cheerful thereby, and that he might fill the poor ones of the Lord with good things, whom, according to his means, he daily increased in numbers. And although costly and exquisite food and drink were set before him, still his only food and drink were bread and water.