He made a long and eloquent speech, and, as it is said, defended himself with great adroitness. It is doubtful, however, if anybody believed him, and it was only the king's reluctance to resort to the sword, which saved him, on this as on many previous occasions. A new agreement was drawn up which was no more effective in restraining the earl's treasonable scheming than the previous ones had been. On the contrary, he was no sooner left to his own devices than he resumed his activity for the overthrow of the king. His purpose this time was to involve Haakon in a quarrel with the Church, in order afterward to crush him with the formidable weapons which the Church had at its command. He shrewdly provided himself with a cat's paw in the person of Bishop Paul of Hamar, who was his devoted adherent. The archbishop, at this time, Sigurd Tavse, was a partisan of the king, but zealous for the welfare of the Church, and therefore, as Skule reasoned, capable of being alienated by a controversy in which the interests of the Church and those of the king were in conflict. Bishop Paul accordingly produced a document, alleged to have been issued by the Bagler king, Inge, in 1226, in which the Helgeö in Mjösen, which was the property of the crown, was presented to the episcopal see of Hamar. The king naturally contested the validity of this document, as Inge, a rebel chief, had no right to give away the property of the crown which had never been his. An appeal was now made to the Pope, Gregory IX., and a campaign of intrigue and mendacity was begun. The excellent and honorable Haakon was systematically reviled and slandered, until the Pope came to believe that he was a villain of the deepest dye. Bishop Paul, virtually as the ambassador of the earl, though nominally in the interest of the Church, betook himself to Rome, where he succeeded in prejudicing Gregory IX. against all the king's adherents, and even against his own superior, the archbishop. Skule, on the other hand, was represented in the most flattering light, as the munificent friend of the Church, and its defender against the encroachments of the unscrupulous king. The object was to procure a ban-bull against Haakon.