Early in the reign we find the spiritual and the secular power acting together in a case that was wholly new to Englishmen. Some thirty German-speaking heretics, probably natives of Flanders, landed here, and made one disciple--a woman. No Christian heretics had ever appeared in England before. Henry summoned a council of bishops to meet at Oxford in 1166; the heretics were found guilty, and were handed over to the "Catholic king." They were condemned to be branded, flogged out of the city, and then to be shunned by all men. Left without food or shelter in the midst of winter, they soon perished. The special action taken with regard to these heretics illustrates the uncertainty of the law as to the punishment of heresy. Here as elsewhere the Church kept itself free from the pollution of blood, and handed the heretic over to the secular power. Although in the reign of John a clerk who apostatized to Judaism was burnt at Oxford, burning for heresy had no place in the common law of England, except such as was given it by writers of law-books, who were under the influence of the Roman jurisprudence. England was generally free from heresy until the time of Wyclif; the papal Inquisition, though used to some extent for the suppression of the Templars, was not introduced into the kingdom, and the subject of heresy and its punishment is of no practical importance until the appearance of the Lollards. [Sidenote: Conquest of Ireland.] While the Scottish bishops were, as we have seen, released by the Pope from dependence on the see of York, the influence of the Church of England was extended both in Ireland and Wales. The Church in Ireland seems to have done little to civilize the people: it had lost the early glories of its missionary days, while it retained its lack of order and its inability to rule itself or others. Almost to the eve of the Conquest it had no archbishops, and had a crowd of bishops without a regular diocesan system. These and other irregularities caused some of the bishops of the Ostmen's towns to seek consecration from Lanfranc and Anselm. St. Bernard and Eugenius III. tried hard to introduce some order into the Church, and their efforts were seconded by the Irish bishop, Malachi. Four sees were raised to metropolitan rank, and some steps were taken towards establishing an orderly system. Still, much remained to be done, and Hadrian IV. (Nicolas Brakespear), the only English Pope, willingly sanctioned Henry's proposal to invade Ireland, and in 1155 sent him the bull "Laudabiliter," bidding him conquer the land for the increase of the Church, together with a ring conveying investiture of the country. He did this in virtue of the forged donation of Constantine, which purported to put all islands under the lordship of the Pope. Hadrian's answer to Henry's request was, therefore, a repetition of the answer that Alexander II. made to the request of William. Both Popes alike sanctioned the