During this unhappy contention several treaties were set on foot; but the disposition of all the parties who interested themselves in this quarrel very much protracted a determination in favor of either side. With regard to Rome, the then Pope was Alexander the Third, one of the wisest prelates who had ever governed that see, and the most zealous for extending its authority. However, though incessantly solicited by Becket to excommunicate the king and to lay the kingdom under an interdict, he was unwilling to keep pace with the violence of that enraged bishop. Becket's view was single; but the Pope had many things to consider: an Antipope then subsisted, who was strongly supported by the Emperor; and Henry had actually entered into a negotiation with this Emperor and this pretended Pope. On the other hand, the king knew that the lower sort of people in England were generally affected to the Archbishop, and much under the influence of the clergy. He was therefore fearful to drive the Pope to extremities by wholly renouncing his authority. These dispositions in the two principal powers made way for several conferences leading to peace. But for a long time all their endeavors seemed rather to inflame than to allay the quarrel. Whilst the king, steady in asserting his rights, remembered with bitterness the Archbishop's opposition, and whilst the Archbishop maintained the claims of the Church with an haughtiness natural to him, and which was only augmented by his sufferings, the King of France appeared sometimes to forward, sometimes to perplex the negotiation: and this duplicity seemed to be dictated by the situation of his affairs. He was desirous of nourishing a quarrel which put so redoubted a vassal on the defensive; but he was also justly fearful of driving so powerful a prince to forget that he was a vassal. All parties, however, wearied at length with a contest by which all were distracted, and which in its issue promised nothing favorable to any of them, yielded at length to an accommodation, founded rather on an oblivion and silence of past disputes than on the settlement of terms for preserving future tranquillity. Becket returned in a sort of triumph to his see. Many of the dignified clergy, and not a few of the barons, lay under excommunication for the share they had in his persecution; but, neither broken by adversity nor softened by good fortune, he relented nothing of his severity, but referred them all for their absolution to the Pope. Their resentments were revived with additional bitterness; new affronts were offered to the Archbishop, which brought on new excommunications and interdicts. The contention thickened on all sides, and things seemed running precipitately to the former dangerous extremities, when the account of these contests was brought, with much aggravation against Becket, to the ears of the king, then in Normandy, who, foreseeing a new series of troubles, broke out in