Common enmities (for they both were hostile to the Ommayad Caliphs and the eastern emperors), drew together these two men whose names for so long were dear to the story-tellers of east and west, Charlemagne and Haroun-al-Raschid. Haroun sent to Charles in 807 some sort of message or letter confirming the act of the Patriarch of Jerusalem which by the surrender of the keys constituted him guardian of the Holy Places. Some years before he had sent, besides other rich and costly presents, one which especially impressed the minds of the Franks, an enormous elephant named Abu-l-Abbas. Under the guidance of its keeper, Isaac the Jew, the elephant safely reached Aachen, where it abode for eight years. In the year 810 it was taken across the Rhine, apparently that its great strength might be made use of in the expected campaign against Godofrid the Dane; and its sudden death at Lippeham in Westphalia is solemnly recorded by the chroniclers among the memorable events of that melancholy year. It was in this same year, in the month of October, that the emperor saw with pride two embassies, from east and west, meet at his court. The long delayed overtures for reconciliation from the Emperor Nicephorus were brought by the one, and proposals for a treaty of peace with El Hakem the Cruel, Emir of Cordova, were brought by the other embassy and graciously accepted by Charles. Nor was our own island unrepresented among the embassies which visited the Frankish Court. With Offa of Mercia, most powerful of English kings before the rise of Ecgbert, the relations were not altogether friendly. A treaty for the marriage of the younger Charles with the daughter of Offa broke down (789), it is said, because of Offa’s counter-proposal on behalf of his son for the hand of Charles’s daughter Bertha. Some passages in this abortive “double marriage negotiation” so annoyed the Frankish king that English merchants were forbidden to land on the shores of Gaul. However, though no marriage was brought to pass, friendly relations between the two kings were restored, perhaps through the mediation of Offa’s subject, Alcuin; and in 796 when the great _Hring_ of the Avars had been despoiled by Eric of Friuli, an Avar sword was graciously sent by Charles as a present to the King of Mercia. It was not at Aachen but at Nimguen on the Rhine that another English king, driven from his realm by revolution, Eardulf of Northumberland, visited Charles’s court in 808 and besought his aid to restore him to his throne. Charles seems to have embraced his cause and sent him on to Rome with a letter of recommendation to Pope Leo whose help was needed, as the Archbishop of York had taken an active part in Eardulf’s deposition. With the help of emperor and pope, Eardulf was restored (809) to a throne which he seems to have justly forfeited by various acts of tyranny; but the reign of the restored king was of short duration.