Note 203 — Front matter (continued 3)

In this last case we have the assurance of Hildebrand himself that he dictated the Papal policy. Years afterwards he wrote to William (Ep., vii., 23) that, when the Norman envoys came to ask Papal approval of his design, it was generally censured as an unjustifiable raid, and Hildebrand alone induced Pope Alexander to send the Normans a banner: on condition, he adds, that William secured the payment of Peter's Pence by the reluctant English and in other ways promoted the interests of Rome. But even William did not dream that his acceptance of the banner made England, in Hildebrand's opinion, a fief of the Roman See!