thence; but it was probably required chiefly for the publication of some further letters from Rome. At some date prior to November, 1223, Pope Honorius was asked, “on the King’s behalf and in his interest,” to give orders that Bishop Peter of Winchester, Earl Ranulf of Chester, the Justiciar, and Falkes, should be compelled to surrender into the King’s hand the royal castles and other bailiwicks which they held. This request can hardly have proceeded from any of the four persons named, nor from the royal Council as a whole. It seems, indeed, utterly unaccountable; yet we know from the Pope himself that he received it, that he issued the desired mandate, and that thereupon he was asked--also “on the King’s behalf”--to quash that mandate, lest it should give occasion to disturbance, since the four men named were all willing to do what was required of them in due season, and no fitter persons could be found to replace them. The Pope, on 20th November, refused to cancel the orders which he had given, “lest he should seem to use lightness,” but made their execution dependent on the will of the King.[931] The story of this correspondence is all the more puzzling because at some date which must have been considerably earlier than 20th November--possibly as early as the date of the letters concerning Henry’s majority--Honorius seems to have issued a bull by which, if its terms are correctly represented by the writers of the time, all special mandates for compelling individuals to surrender their wardenships were made superfluous. According to Roger of Wendover, certain “messengers of the King” brought back from Rome a bull addressed to the archbishops of England and their suffragans, commanding that, the King being now recognized as of an age to take the chief part in the ordering of his realm, they should, by apostolic authority, bid all earls, barons, knights, and other persons whatsoever having the custody of castles, honours, and townships belonging to the royal demesne, surrender them to the King at once; and should force recalcitrants to submission by means of ecclesiastical censures.[932] The reference in the Pope’s other letters concerning Henry’s coming of age to the surrender of Crown castles and lands seems to have been understood, at the time when those letters were published, as intended merely to sanction the oath taken by the barons in May, 1220, and strengthen the hands of the young King whenever he might wish to claim its fulfilment. But the bull to the prelates was, by implication at least, a peremptory order from the Pope for a general surrender of all such wardenships at once. The existence of this bull seems to have been known to some persons in England before the middle of November, but the bull appears not to have been published till the beginning of December.[933] At the council held in London on that occasion Chester and his allies were not present; on the King’s return they had withdrawn to Waltham. The Primate approached