He spent the entire year 1242 in the south in his own kingdom, mostly in Foggia, Capua, or Naples. He came nowhere near Rome or the cardinals. He was, however, in contact with the cardinals. In February 1242 he sent three ambassadors to Rome to the Papal Curia, to discuss a peace. Frederick wanted the cardinals to get together and make a pope. He also wrote directly to them, offering to release Cardinal Jacobus de Pecorara and Cardinal Oddo de Monferrato if the cardinals would proceed to an election. The Emperor wrote a second time, in May, an elaborate rhetorical exercise based on the "topos" of the Church as a ship without its steersman and the danger of shipwreck (schism). This was for public consumption. Another letter followed in July, more directly accusing the cardinals of driving the ship off-course: how could they show the right path to those who had wandered from it, if they themselves were wandering off the right course? In the Spring of 1243, after a vacancy that had gone on for more than fifteen months, cardinals who had gathered at Anagni during that time, wrote a letter to an English prelate, placing their names in the heading: R[aynaldus] Ostiensis et Velletrensis, J[ohannes] tituli Sanctae Praxedis, S[inibaldus] tituli Sancti Luarentii in Lucina, S[tephanus] tituli Sanctae Mariae trans Tyberim, presbyteri; R[aynerius] Sanctae Mariae in Cosmedin, E[gidius] Sanctorum Cosmae et Damiani, O[tho] Sancti Nicholai in carcere Tulliano, diaconi; sanctae Ecclesiae Romanae Cardinales. Cardinal Oddone di Monferrato was present in Anagni and signed the letter; he had been released by the Emperor in August 1242. Cardinal Romano Bonaventura did not sign; he had died on February 21, 1243. The names of these seven cardinals show who had left Rome by that time, and that the balance was shifting between the Imperial party (Ghibbelines) led by the Colonna, and the opposition, led by the Orsini. The "maybe six, maybe seven" cardinals left in Rome immediately after the death of Celestine IV did not represent a party, but merely those who had not yet decided on what course of action to take.