ANNALS OF ROGER DE HOVEDEN. A.D. 1172. 344 a few words, explain the circumstances of the perpetration of this crime, the enormity of which can hardly be imagined. During the Nativity of our Lord, on the day after the Feast of the Innocents, towards sunset, and about the hour of vespers, the executioners having gained admission, the three, namely, who had been the first to arrive, approached this valiant champion of Christ in a most threatening and insolent manner ; the names of whom, that their memories may be visited with everlasting maledictions, I here insert, Hugh de Morville, William dc Tracy, and Reginald Fitz-Urse ; these, on their first approach, on being saluted by the man of God, did not return the salutation, inasmuch as, having entered upon the ways of perdition, they manifestly rejected all that was salutary ; but, on the contrary, contumeliously and malignantly thundered forth threats against him, if he did not, in obedience to the king's mandate, absolve the bishops who were suspended or excommunicated. On his making answer that this manifestly pertained to your province, as being the sole judge thereon, and that he could not think of claiming any himself where so great an authority was concerned ; • they immediately, on the king's behalf, denounced him as a traitor, and instantly went forth to their company of soldiers. As they went forth they also ordered, in the king's name, those knights who belonged to the household of the man of God, upon peril of their lives and forfeiture of all their honors, to go forth likewise, and silently and patiently await the result. A similar proclamation of the king was published throughout the city. Rut this single champion of Christ has, in our days, despised the threats of princes, and was with the greatest difficulty, by the persuasion of the knights, compelled to go forth from the place where he had already, as it were, received a foretaste of death : and this was done that ho might not seem unwilling to meet his end. God, therefore, providing the mother church, dedicated in honor of Christ himself, entering the same, the anointed of the Lord was deemed worthy to be sacrificed for the name of Christ in the spot where each day Christ as well is offered up. This priest of the Most High, standing before the altar, and embracing in his arms the crosswhich he had been accustomed to have carried before him, and praying, voluntarily offered himself as a peace- offering to God between the cross and the horns of the