W.
Heming.p.553 Knyghton, p.

2415.] In vain did the monks represent, that they had received from their convent no authority for this purpose; that an election without a previous writ from the king, would be deemed highly irregular and that they were merely agents for another person, whose right they had no power or pretence to abandon.

None of them had the courage to persevere in this opposition, except one, Elias de Brantefield: all the rest, overcome by the menaces and authority of the pope, complied with his orders, and made the election required of them.
Innocent, sensible that this flagrant usurpation would be highly resented by the court of England, wrote John a mollifying letter; sent him four golden rings set with precious stones; and endeavored to enhance the value of the present, by informing him of the many mysteries implied in it.

He begged him to consider seriously the form of the rings, their number, their matter, and their color.

Their form, he said, being round, shadowed out eternity, which had neither beginning nor end; and he ought thence to learn his duty of aspiring from earthly objects to heavenly, from things temporal to tilings eternal.