ALEXANDER  SUPPORTS  BECKET  1 79

a  fair  opportunity.  Writing  to  Foliot,  Alexander  said :
"You  are  doubtless  aware  how  the  aforesaid  king  has
fallen  away  from  his  former  devotion  to  the  Church.  By
forbidding  appeals  and  visits  to  us  {visitationibus  nostris\
by  communicating  with  schismatics  and  with  those  who
are  excommunicated,  and  by  allying  himself  with  them,
and  by  compelling  our  venerable  brother  Thomas,  arch-
bishop of  Canterbury,  to  leave  the  kingdom,  he  has  shown
himself  in  the  light  of  a  persecutor."  The  bishop  must
admonish  the  king  on  these  matters,  and  let  him  know
that,  despite  the  gratitude  which  the  Pope  owes  him,  his
patience  in  enduring  his  evil  conduct  cannot  last  for  ever
(June  1165V

But  it  was  not  the  impatience  of  Alexander  that  Henry
had  to  fear;  it  was  that  of  the  archbishop  which  was
dreaded  by  Pope  and  king  alike.  And  so  the  former,
whilst  about  this  same  time  (June  1 165)  declaring  null  the
sentence  of  confiscation  of  his  goods,  "which  had  been
presumptuously  passed  upon  their  archbishop  by  the
bishops  and  barons  of  England,"  ^  urged  Becket  to  do
nothing  against  the  king  or  his  domains  till  the  following
Easter  (April  24,  1 166).^

In  the  meantime,  however,  he  did  not  forget  the  interests
of  the  saint  "  who  had  resolved  to  suffer  exile  rather  than
consent  to  what  would  turn  to  our  injury  or  to  that  of  the
Church,"  but,  on  his  way  back  to  Rome,  wrote  to  Louis  to
beg  him  to  grant  some  bishopric  or  abbacy  to  the  archbishop
for  his  support,*  and  to  Foliot  and  the  bishops  of  England
urging  them  to  zeal  in  his  behalf,  or  to  respect  his  rights.^

*  Ep,  349,  or  ap.  Mat^  v.  176.
