illiam would bring the English realm far more fully under the
influence of the Roman Church. William had always been very submissive
to the pontifical authority, as was shown in his conduct in respect to
the question of his marriage. He himself, and also Matilda his wife, had
always taken a warm interest in the welfare and prosperity of the
abbeys, the monasteries, the churches, and the other religious
establishments of the times. Then the very circumstance that he sent his
embassador to Rome to submit his claims to the pontiff's adjudication,
while Harold did not do so, indicated a greater deference for the
authority of the Church, and made it probable that he would be a far
more obedient and submissive son of the Church, in his manner of ruling
his realm, if he should succeed in gaining possession of it, than Harold
his rival. The pope and his counselors at Rome thought it proper to take
all these things into the account in deciding between William and
Harold, as they honestly believed, without doubt, that it was their
first and highest duty to exalt and aggrandize, by every possible means,
the spiritual authority of the sacred institution over which they were
called to preside.

The pope and his cardinals, accordingly, espoused William's cause very
warmly. In addition to the diploma which gave William formal authority
to take possession of the English crown, the pope sent him a banner and
a ring. The banner was of costly and elegant workmanship; its value,
however, did not consist in its elegance or its cost, but in a solemn
benediction which his holiness pronounced over it, by which it was
rendered sacred and inviolable. The banner, thus blessed, was forwarded
to William by Lanfranc with great care.

It was accompanied by the ring. The ring was of gold, and it contained a
diamond of great value. The gold and the diamond both, however, served
only as settings to preserve and honor something of far greater value
than they. This choice treasure was a hair from the head of the Apostle
Peter! a sacred relic of miraculous virtue and of inestimable value.

When the edict with its leaden seal, and the banner and the ring arrived
in Normandy, they produced a great and universal excitement. To have
bestowed upon the enterprise thus emphatically the solemn sanction of
the great spiritual head of the Church, to whom the great mass of the
people looked up with an awe and a reverence almost divine, was to seal
indissolubly the