The archbishop of Rouen, the bishops of Worcester and Evreux, with five persons of inferior quality, were immediately despatched to Rome, and orders were given them to perform their journey with the utmost expedition.

Though the name and authority of the court of Rome were so terrible in the remote countries of Europe, which were sunk in profound ignorance, and were entirely unacquainted with its character and conduct, the pope was so little revered at home, that his inveterate enemies surrounded the gates of Rome itself, and even controlled his government in that city; and the ambassadors, who, from a distant extremity of Europe, carried to him the humble, or rather abject submissions of the greatest potentate of the age, found the utmost difficulty to make their way to him and to throw themselves at his feet.

It was at length agreed that Richard Barre, one of their number, should leave the rest behind, and run all the hazards of the passage, in order to prevent the fatal consequences which might ensue from any delay in giving satisfaction to his holiness.

He found, on his arrival, that Alexander was already wrought up to the greatest rage against the king, that Becket's partisans were daily stimulating him to revenge, that the king of France had exhorted him to fulminate the most dreadful sentence against England, and that the very mention of Henry's name before the sacred college, was received with every expression of horror and execration.
The Thursday before Easter was now approaching, when it is customary for the pope to denounce annual curses against all his enemies; and it was expected that Henry should, with all the preparations peculiar to the discharge of that sacred artillery, be solemnly comprehended in the number.

But Barre found means to appease the pontiff, and to deter him from a measure which, if it failed of success, could not afterwards be easily recalled: the anathemas were only levelled in general against all the actors, accomplices and abettors of Becket's murder.