“You are not ignorant that it is by the counsel of the divine will that your piety presides over the realm of England. For when, to avoid the hatred of a perverse king, you chose to withdraw and to dwell by yourself far from the turmoil of England, living unto God, Almighty God wrought an awful judgment upon the perverse king. But by the vehement demand of the whole people and by the wonderful devoutness of the new king, you have been recalled to the primacy which for God’s sake you abandoned. Thanks be to God that episcopal authority ever abides in you, and that though you are set among a barbarous folk, you cease not to proclaim truth in spite of the violence of tyrants and the favour of the mighty, in spite of the kindled fire and the outstretched hand. We ask therefore that what you are doing, you continue to do, that what you proclaim, you proclaim to the end. For the inspiration of Him, Who in the beginning was the Word, shall not be wanting to our words and works. Nor will we be wanting to Him Who is the power of God and the wisdom of God. For we believe that we have the same inspiration as our fathers, wherefore also we now speak.... In the truth thereof we will guard against the lies of men. Wherefore in the late Lateran council we re-enacted the famous decrees of our fathers, proclaiming and prohibiting that no clerk whatsoever accept churches or ecclesiastical gifts from the hand of a layman; for this is the root of the vice of simony, when fools strive to win the favour of secular persons in order to receive the honours of the church. Therefore the reverend majesty of holy councils has decreed that ecclesiastical elections shall be guarded from the power of secular princes, in order that, as through Christ only is the door of the church first opened to eternal life in baptism and at the last in death, so through Christ only shall be appointed the door-keeper of Christ’s fold, by whom Christ’s sheep, not for hire but for Christ, shall be led in and out to life eternal. These things, dear brother, might be treated at greater length both in speech and argument, but it is enough to have set forth a few considerations to your wisdom, which abounds in divine utterances and is familiar with ecclesiastical arguments. Teach these things, as you know befits your primacy, which, moreover, we confirm to you as fully and entirely as it was ever held by your predecessors, adding for ourselves that so long as the divine mercy shall preserve your piety in the realm of England, you shall not be subject to the judgment of any legate, but only of ourself.”