BY QUEEN ELIZABETH TO SIR JOHN FORTESCUE]

T1he transient visit of Charlemagne to Italy in the year 776 appears for the moment to have dissipated the apprehensions of the pope. Four years later an interval of peace on his Saxon frontier and the temporary submission of his turbulent vassal Tassilo of Bavaria left Charlemagne at leisure to disentangle by his presence the ravelled state of Italian affairs. He was probably anxious to acquaint himself personally with the causes of the existing disorders, as well as to obtain an explanation of the interruption in the harmony of his correspondence with the pope, whom he sincerely honoured and was well disposed to support. The critical state, however, of the coasts and frontiers, as depicted to him by Adrian, appears to have made no serious impression. No military preparations were thought necessary; and in the winter of the year 780, Charlemagne, accompanied by his consort Hildegard, his two infant sons Carloman and Louis, and escorted by no other force than his ordinary household troops and followers, crossed the Alps into Italy. The annalists of the age describe the expedition as a visit of devotion.