Note 778 — Chapter III · THE LEGATION OF PANDULF 1219–1221 (continued 2)

Commentators seem puzzled to account for a letter, dated 29th April, 1221, in which the Pope bids the Archbishop of York and his suffragans, “cum, sicut audivimus et dolemus, gravis guerra in regno Angliae incipit pullulare, quae nisi fuerit repressa celeriter, in totius regni poterit excrescere detrimentum ... quatenus singuli tanquam propriam causam agentes ad praecidendam guerrarum materiam et pacis foedera reformandam omne studium et diligentiam impendatis”; Roy. Lett., vol. i. pp. 174, 175. I would suggest that Honorius had heard something of the misdoings of the lord of Holderness, and was neither sufficiently learned in English geography to realize that they were not actually done in the northern province, nor, as yet, aware—as, indeed, he could not be at that date—how promptly they had been brought to an end.