But John of Oxford, the king's agent with the pope, had the address to procure orders for suspending this sentence; and he gave the pontiff such hopes of a speedy reconcilement between the king and Becket, that two legates, William of Pavia and Otho, were sent to Normandy, where the king then resided, and they endeavored to find expedients for that purpose.

But the pretensions of the parties were as yet too opposite to admit of an accommodation: the king required that all the constitutions of Clarendon should be ratified; Becket, that previously to any agreement, he and his adherents should be restored to their possessions; and as the legates had no power to pronounce a definite sentence on either side, the negotiation soon after came to nothing.

The cardinal of Pavia also, being much attached to Henry, took care to protract the negotiation; to mitigate the pope by the accounts which he sent of that prince's conduct, and to procure him every possible indulgence from the see of Rome.

About this time, the king had also the address to obtain a dispensation for the marriage of his third son, Geoffrey, with the heiress of Brittany; a concession which, considering Henry's demerits towards the church, gave great scandal both to Becket, and to his zealous patron, the king of France.
{1167.} The intricacies of the feudal law had, in that age, rendered the boundaries of power between the prince and his vassals, and between one prince and another, as uncertain as those between the crown and the mitre; and all wars took their origin from disputes, which, had there been any tribunal possessed of power to enforce their decrees, ought to have been decided only before a court of judicature.

Henry, in prosecution of some controversies in which he was involved with the count of Auvergne, a vassal of the duchy of Guienne, bad invaded the territories of that nobleman; who had recourse to the king of France, his superior lord, for protection, and thereby kindled a war between the two monarchs.