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Page 379
Cursing himself, Geoffrey dispatched Sir Guy to Kemp, wrote to Leicester and to Adam, and left at once for Mersea, knowing that orders must also have gone out to the sheriffs at about the same time to summon the barons to war. Invasion was then imminent. While he lingered in Roselynde, Geoffrey had hoped that danger was passing. It seemed to him that if the pope had intended to order John deposed, the order should have been already published. But there was no news of it from the Roselynde fishermen or merchants. It was in Mersea, where Geoffrey found Sir John deeply involved in preparations for defense of his own lands and for answering the king's summons, that Geoffrey finally learned the current rumors. These came not from France but from the court of Ferrand of Flanders, who was suddenly most genial toward English merchants whom, in the past, he had burdened with punitive taxes or forbidden trade altogether.
Stephen Langton had obtained letters of deposition from the pope, but John's emissaries were already in Rome and had so well impressed Pandulf that he had lingered behind while they presented their case to Innocent. They had convinced the pope of John's sincerity, also, describing how, at the peak of his power, the king had felt the hand of God and had repented of all spites done the Holy Church. Pandulf had then asked and received permission to bid Langton hold back the letters of deposition while John's sincerity was tested one last time. The legate Pandulf was no frail priest. He had taken horse, forced a passage across the Alps, and ridden night and day until he overtook Langton. Unless John again refused the pope's terms, there would be no order to depose him.
That was a considerable relief, but the remainder of the news was not so good. Philip, it appeared, had no intentions of allowing his preparations to go to waste. Counting on the disaffection of the nobility of England, Philip planned to invade anyway. But, Sir John continued, Philip was having his own troubles with disaffection. As evidenced by the sudden cosseting of English merchants, Dammartin was influencing Ferrand. Philip's son Louis had taken St. Omer

 
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