The new Legate was not a stranger to England. His first recorded visit there had taken place in 1211. He was then in subdeacon’s orders, and a member of the household of Pope Innocent III.[519] Of his earlier life nothing is known, except that he was a Roman by birth;[520] but King John seems to have already had some indirect knowledge of him, for it was at John’s request that he and another papal envoy, a brother of the Temple, were appointed by Innocent to go and confer with the King of England for the restoration of peace to the English Church.[521] In the one interview which took place between the commissioners and the King, Pandulf was the spokesman on the papal side; and John found that he had mistaken his man. The subdeacon simply stated the terms which he was instructed to offer to John; a long argument ensued, in which John was worsted; but he still refused to submit, whereupon Pandulf told him to his face, in the presence of all the court, that the Pope meant to subdue him and had already excommunicated him and absolved his subjects from their allegiance, and that the sentence was to take effect from that day forth. “If I had not sent for you, I would make you ride about my realm for a year!” raved the King. “You might as well say you would hang us,” coolly answered Pandulf; “we look for no other reward from you”; and when John tried to frighten him by issuing in his presence orders for the mutilation and execution of sundry prisoners, one of whom was a priest, the only result was that Pandulf went to fetch a candle for the avowed purpose of formally excommunicating then and there any person who should lay hands on this particular victim, and that John, evidently alarmed lest the candle should be used against himself as well as against his officers, hurried after the dauntless subdeacon and surrendered the man to his judgement.[522] Thenceforth Pandulf became the Pope’s special confidant and assistant in all matters relating to England and its King. It was he who in January, 1213, carried to Philip Augustus the Pope’s letter charging Philip with the execution of the sentence of deprivation against John; and it was he alone who shared with the Pope the secret of the negotiations which were then already afoot for rendering Philip’s expedition needless. Four months later he was in England again, receiving, in the Pope’s behalf, first John’s assent to the identical terms which he had refused in 1211, and secondly the King’s homage to the Roman See for the realms of England and Ireland.[523]