Immediately after entering England (July 1213) he showed his desire for peace by absolving the king.
2
It was more and more regarded as the special function of the priest to administer absolution, though as late as the i 6th century we hear of laymen confessing to and absolving one another on the battlefield because no priest was at hand.
3
The sovereign pontiff never claimed any power of absolving in grievous matters apart from these.
4
He had become an incurable hypochondriac. He said long after that he had been mad all his life, or at least not perfectly sane; and, in truth, eccentricities less strange than his have often been thought ground sufficient for absolving felons and for setting aside wills.