When Angelo Cardinal Roncalli was elected and became Pope John, there was some confusion as to whether he would be John XXIII or John XXIV ; he then declared that he was John XXIII to put this question to rest.

When Cardinal Jacopo Sadoleto wrote a letter to the city council inviting Geneva to return to the Catholic faith, the council searched for an ecclesiastical authority to respond to him.

" When the inquisitor-general of France learned that Servetus was hiding in Vienne, according to Calvin under an assumed name, he contacted Cardinal François de Tournon, the secretary of the archbishop of Lyon, to take up the matter.

When he calls for " the rack ", Cardinal Biggles produces a dish-drying rack.

When Martin IV died on 28 March 1285, at Perugia, Cardinal Savelli was unanimously elected Pope on 20 May and took the name of Honorius IV.

When, almost immediately after, Cardinal Farnese was recalled to Rome, Cervini stayed on as Nuntius.

When the attempt of papal forces to take over the ancient independent Republic of San Marino failed, Clement XII disavowed the arbitrary action of his legate, Cardinal Alberoni, in seizing San Marino, and restored its independence.

When it became clear to Henry that the Tudor dynasty was at risk, he consulted his chief minister Cardinal Thomas Wolsey about the possibility of divorcing Catherine.

When Otto II sent an imperial representative, Count Sicco, to secure his release, Crescentius I and Cardinal Franco Ferrucci had Benedict VI murdered while still in prison in 974.

When Italian authorities expropriated convents and monasteries of Catholic orders, turning them into administration or military buildings, Cardinal Pecci protested but acted moderately.

When Pope Leo XI died, 1605, Cardinal Borghese became Pope over a number of candidates including Caesar Baronius and Roberto Cardinal Bellarmine ; his neutrality in the factional times made him an ideal compromise candidate.

When the French Revolutionary Army invaded Italy in 1797, Cardinal Chiaramonti cautioned temperance and submission to the Cisalpine Republic they established.

When the Cardinal had heard these good words of the king, he quickly lighted from his mule and kneeled down in the dirt upon both knees, holding up his hands for joy, and said " When I consider the joyful news that you have brought to me, I could do no less than greatly rejoice.

When Rampolla subsequently was appointed Cardinal Secretary of State, Della Chiesa followed him.

When Cardinal Rampolla had to leave his post with the election of his opponent Pope Pius X, and was succeeded by Cardinal Rafael Merry del Val, Della Chiesa was retained in his post.

When the War of the Polish Succession broke out in 1733, France used it as an opportunity to seize Lorraine, since France's prime minister, Cardinal Fleury, was concerned that, as a Habsburg possession, it would bring Austrian power too close to France.

When the sickly young man became king after his father's death in 1559, the queen's uncles, the Duke of Guise and his brother the Cardinal of Lorraine, controlled French politics during his short reign.

When he was twenty-three, however, he received permission to study law at Poitiers, no doubt with a view to his obtaining preferment through his kinsman the Cardinal Jean du Bellay.

When the civil marriage of Leopold and Lilian was made public by Cardinal van Roey, in a pastoral letter read throughout Belgian churches in December, 1941, there was a mixed reaction in Belgium.

When, a few weeks later the French troops were recalled to northern Italy, Ferdinand sent a hastily assembled force, under Cardinal Ruffo, to reconquer the mainland kingdom.

When Christian conversion efforts on the part of Granada's first archbishop, Hernando de Talavera, brought Muslim opposition, Cardinal Jimenez de Cisneros took stronger measures: with forced conversions, burning Islamic texts, and prosecuting many of Granada's Muslims.

When Wolsey fails to persuade the Pope to give Henry his divorce, Anne points out this failing to an enraged Henry.

When Wolsey fell from the king's favour in that year, Leland appears to have sought the patronage of Thomas Cromwell, a relationship which would help explain his rising fortunes over the next few years.

When her father was facing difficulties in Scotland in October 1529, he sent Margaret back into England to Norham Castle the household of her godfather, Cardinal Wolsey.

When Wolsey died in 1530, Lady Margaret was invited to Beaulieu, where she resided in the household of Princess Mary.

When Henry VIII took over Hampton Court Palace from Cardinal Thomas Wolsey in 1529, the King also took over the three parks that make up modern day Bushy Park: Hare Warren, Middle Park and Bushy Park.

When developed sufficiently, the king's personal virtue spreads beneficent influence throughout the kingdom.

When the woman's turn came, she was given anything she wanted to take with her from the harem to the king's palace.

When the Archbishop of Canterbury, Hubert Walter, died on 13 July 1205, John became involved in a dispute with Pope Innocent III that would lead to the king's excommunication.

When the king was absent from the city, the prefect held all of the king's powers and abilities, even to the point of being bestowed with imperium while inside the city.

When tribal forces advanced on the capital, many of the king's troops deserted.

When the king said that he would call his friends into council and consider what he ought to do, Popilius drew a circle in the sand around the king's feet with the stick he was carrying and said, " Before you step out of that circle give me a reply to lay before the senate.

When he came to mount the steps to the scaffold, he is widely quoted as saying ( to the officials ): " I pray you, I pray you, Mr Lieutenant, see me safe up and for my coming down, I can shift for myself "; while on the scaffold he declared that he died " the king's good servant, but God's first.

When, after a year, Themistocles returned to the king's court, he appears to have made an immediate impact, and " he attained ... very high consideration there, such as no Hellene has ever possessed before or since ".

When his treacherous wife stole his clothing needed to restore his human form, he escaped the king's wolf hunt by imploring the king for mercy and accompanied the king thereafter.

When Prince Alexander died on 28 January 1284, leaving only the king's granddaughter Margaret living out of his descendants, Alexander III summoned all thirteen Earls of Scotland, twenty-four barons and the heads of the three main Gaelic kindreds of the West, Alexander of Argyll, Aonghas Mór of Islay and Alan MacRuari of Garmoran.

When Stigand, who was acting as intermediary, conveyed the king's jest that Godwin could have his peace if he could restore Alfred and his companions alive and well, Godwin and his sons fled, going to Flanders and Ireland.

When Melisende's father was captured during a campaign in 1123, Morphia hired a band of Armenian mercenaries to discover where her husband was being held prisoner, and in 1124 Morphia took a leading part in the negotiations with Baldwin's captors to have him released, including traveling to Syria and handing over her youngest daughter Yveta as hostage and as surety for the payment of the king's ransom.

When the majority of the Castilian nobles refused to accept a Portuguese sovereign, and welcomed the former king's illegitimate half-brother as Henry II of Castile, Ferdinand allied himself with the Moors and Aragonese ; but in 1371 Pope Gregory XI intervened, and it was decided that Ferdinand should renounce his claim and marry Eleanor, the daughter of his successful rival.

When the king's messenger reached Ralambo's elder son Prince Andriantompokondrindra, he was playing fanorona and trying to win a telo noho dimy ( 3 against 5 ) situation, one that is infamously difficult to resolve.

When Elizabeth's relatives, especially her brother, Anthony Woodville, 2nd Earl Rivers, began to challenge Warwick's pre-eminence in English political society, Warwick conspired with his son-in-law, the Duke of Clarence, the king's younger brother.

When the king's horses came back, right before the finish line, they stopped at the holly twigs Taliesin had laid there, and began to dance.

When Francis I was still alive, Diane had to compete at the court with Anne de Pisseleu, the king's favourite.

When the peasants and their leaders realized the king was at Odense, they raced to the king's farm, but Canute and Benedict fled into the little timber church of St. Alban's Priory near the river for sanctuary.

When Edward II left the country early in 1308 to marry the French king's daughter Isabella, he appointed Gaveston regent in his place.

When in 1551 the mismanagement of Sir William Dansell, king's merchant in the Low Countries, had brought the English government into great financial embarrassment, the authorities called in Gresham to give his advice, and then chose him to carry out his own proposals.

When Hugh Peters visited John Lilburne in the Tower on 25 May 1649, Lilburne told him that he would rather have had seven years under the late king's rule than one under the present regime, and that in his opinion if the current regime remained as tyrannical as it was, then people would be prepared to fight for " Prince Charles ".

When a group of barons led by King Henry II's sons – Henry the Young King, Geoffrey Duke of Brittany, and Prince Richard, later Richard the Lionheart – revolted against the king's rule, Henry spent £ 116 on building at the castles of Bolsover and Peveril in Derbyshire.

When the king's thanes that were behind heard in the morning that the king was slain, they rode to the spot, Osric his alderman, and Wiverth his thane, and the men that he had left behind previously ; and they met the etheling at the town, where the king lay slain.

When he was leaving the presence chamber, flattered with the assurance of the king's esteem, Fouquet was arrested by a captain of musketeers named d ' Artagnan.