In 1587 and 1588, however, fresh accusations were brought against him, and he was again excommunicated, though afterwards on the inducement of his old opponent, Andrew Melville, the sentence was again remitted.
Whilst the insurrection in La Vende was spreading, and Dumouriez falling back upon Neerwinden, sentence of death was laid upon migrs and refractory priests; the treachery of Dumouriez, disappointed in his Belgian projects, gave grounds First corn- for all kinds of suspicion, as that of Mirabeau had mittee ot formerly done, and led the Gironde to propose the public new government which they had refused to Danton.
A French official wearing a scarf came up to the right of the row of prisoners and read out the sentence in Russian and in French.
On the 21st of September 1567 sentence of degradation and death was passed on him and sixteen others, ambassadors from Florence vainly kneeling to the pope for some mitigation, and on the 1st of October he was publicly beheaded and then burned.
The most memorable acts of his pontificate were those arising out of the contumacy of the French king, Robert, who was ultimately brought to submission by the rigorous infliction of a sentence of excommunication.
But in 1696 for his boldness in granting absolution on the scaffold to Sir John Friend and Sir William Parkyns, who had attempted the assassination of William, he was obliged to flee, and for the rest of his life continued under sentence of outlawry.
Together with the kings and ephors it formed the supreme executive committee of the state, and it exercised also a considerable criminal and political jurisdiction, including the trial of kings; its competence extended to the infliction of a sentence of exile or even of death.
He distinguished himself by being the only member of the assembly who entered a protest against what he deemed the inadequate sentence passed on John Simson, professor of divinity at Glasgow, who was accused of heterodox teaching on the Incarnation.
Miguel, and the queen, Carlota Joaquina, refused to take the oath; and in December 1822 sentence of banishment was pronounced against them, though not enforced.
The bishops denounced sentence of excommunication against all transgressors, and soon after Howel himself went to Rome attended by the archbishop of St David's, the bishops of Bangor and St Asaph and thirteen other personages.