The History of England Part 27

This feeble effort was the last exploit of that slothful and cowardly prince for the defence of his dominions. He thenceforth remained in total inactivity at Rouen; pa.s.sing all his time with his young wife in pastimes and amus.e.m.e.nts, as if his state had been in the most profound tranquillity, or his affairs in the most prosperous condition. If he ever mentioned war, it was only to give himself vaunting airs, which, in the eyes of all men, rendered him still more despicable and ridiculous. LET THE FRENCH GO ON, said he, I WILL RETAKE IN A DAY WHAT IT HAS COST THEM YEARS TO ACQUIRE [s]. His stupidity and indolence appeared so extraordinary, that the people endeavoured to account for the infatuation by sorcery, and believed that he was thrown into this lethargy by some magic or witchcraft. The English barons, finding that their time was wasted to no purpose, and that they must suffer the disgrace of seeing, without resistance, the progress of the French arms, withdrew from their colours, and secretly returned to their own country [t]. No one thought of defending a man who seemed to have deserted himself; and his subjects regarded his fate with the same indifference to which in this pressing exigency they saw him totally abandoned.

[FN [s] M. Paris, p. 146. M. West. p. 266. [t] M. Paris, p. 146. M.

West. p. 264.]

John, while he neglected all domestic resources, had the meanness to betake himself to a foreign power, whose protection he claimed: he applied to the pope, Innocent III., and entreated him to interpose his authority between him and the French monarch. Innocent, pleased with any occasion of exerting his superiority, sent Philip orders to stop the progress of his arms, and to make peace with the King of England.

But the French barons received the message with indignation; disclaimed the temporal authority a.s.sumed by the pontiff; and vowed that they would, to the uttermost, a.s.sist their prince against all his enemies; Philip, seconding their ardour, proceeded, instead of obeying the pope's envoys, to lay siege to Chateau Gaillard, the most considerable fortress which remained to guard the frontiers of Normandy.

[MN 1204.] Chateau Gaillard was situated partly on an island in the river Seine, partly on a rock opposite to it; and was secured by every advantage which either art or nature could bestow upon it. The late king, having cast his eye on this favourable situation, had spared no labour or expense in fortifying it; and it was defended by Roger de Laci, Constable of Chester, a determined officer, at the head of a numerous garrison. Philip, who despaired of taking the place by force, purposed to reduce it by famine; and, that he might cut off its communication with the neighbouring country, he threw a bridge across the Seine, while he himself, with his army, blockaded it by land. The Earl of Pembroke, the man of greatest vigour and capacity in the English court, formed a plan for breaking through the French intrenchments, and throwing relief into the place. He carried with him an army of four thousand infantry and three thousand cavalry, and suddenly attacked, with great success, Philip's camp in the night-time; having left orders that a fleet of seventy flat-bottomed vessels should sail up the Seine, and fall at the same instant on the bridge. But the wind and the current of the river, by r.e.t.a.r.ding the vessels, disconcerted this plan of operations; and it was morning before the fleet appeared; when Pembroke, though successful in the beginning of the action, was already repulsed with considerable loss, and the King of France had leisure to defend himself against these new a.s.sailants, who also met with a repulse. After this misfortune, John made no farther efforts for the relief of Chateau Gaillard; and Philip had all the leisure requisite for conducting and finis.h.i.+ng the siege.

Roger de Laci defended himself for a twelvemonth with great obstinacy; and having bravely repelled every attack, and patiently borne all the hards.h.i.+ps of famine, he was at last overpowered by a sudden a.s.sault in the night-time, and made prisoner of war, with his garrison [u].

Philip, who knew how to respect valour even in an enemy, treated him with civility, and gave him the whole city of Paris for the place of his confinement.

[FN [u] Trivet, p. 144. Gul. Britto, lib. 7. Ann. Waverl. p. 168.]

When this bulwark of Normandy was once subdued, all the province lay open to the inroads of Philip; and the King of England despaired of being any longer able to defend it. He secretly prepared vessels for a scandalous flight, and that the Normans might no longer doubt of his resolution to abandon them, he ordered the fortifications of Pont de l'Arche, Molineaux, and Montfort l'Amauri, to be demolished. Not daring to repose confidence in any of his barons, whom he believed to be universally engaged in a conspiracy against him, he intrusted the government of the province to Archas Martin and Lupicaire, two mercenary Brabancons, whom he had retained in his service. Philip, now secure of his prey, pushed his conquests with vigour and success against the dismayed Normans. Falaise was first besieged; and Lupicaire, who commanded in this impregnable fortress, after surrendering the place, enlisted himself with his troops in the service of Philip, and carried on hostilities against his ancient master. Caen, Coutance, Seez, Evreux, Baieux, soon fell into the hands of the French monarch, and all the Lower Normandy was reduced under his dominion. To forward his enterprises on the other division of the province, Gui de Thouars, at the head of the Bretons, broke into the territory, and took Mount St. Michael, Avranches, and all the other fortresses in that neighbourhood. The Normans, who abhorred the French yoke, and who would have defended themselves to the last extremity if their prince had appeared to conduct them, found no resource but in submission; and every city opened its gates as soon as Philip appeared before it. [MN 1205.] Rouen alone, Arques, and Verneuil, determined to maintain their liberties, and formed a confederacy for mutual defence. Philip began with the siege of Rouen: the inhabitants were so inflamed with hatred to France, that, on the appearance of his army, they fell on all the natives of that country whom they found within their walls, and put them to death. But after the French king had begun his operations with success, and had taken some of their outworks, the citizens, seeing no resource, offered to capitulate; and demanded only thirty days to advertise their prince of their danger, and to require succours against the enemy. [MN 1st June.] Upon the expiration of the term, as no supply had arrived, they opened their gates to Philip [w]; and the whole province soon after imitated the example, and submitted to the victor. Thus was this important territory re-united to the crown of France, about three centuries after the cession of it by Charles the Simple to Rollo, the first duke: and the Normans, sensible that this conquest was probably final, demanded the privilege of being governed by French laws; which Philip, making a few alterations on the ancient Norman customs, readily granted them. But the French monarch had too much ambition and genius to stop in his present career of success. He carried his victorious army into the western provinces; soon reduced Anjou, Maine, Touraine, and part of Poictou [x]; and in this manner the French crown, during the reign of one able and active prince, received such an accession of power and grandeur, as in the ordinary course of things, it would have required several ages to attain.

[FN [w] Trivet. p. 147. Ypod. Neust. p. 459. [x] Trivet, p. 149.]

John, on his arrival in England, that he might cover the disgrace of his own conduct, exclaimed loudly against his barons, who, he pretended, had deserted his standard in Normandy; and he arbitrarily extorted from them a seventh of all their moveables, as a punishment for the offence [y]. Soon after he forced them to grant him a scutage of two marks and a half on each knight's fee for an expedition into Normandy; but he did not attempt to execute the service for which he pretended to exact it. Next year he summoned all the barons of his realm to attend him on this foreign expedition, and collected s.h.i.+ps from all the sea-ports; but meeting with opposition from some of his ministers, and abandoning his design, he dismissed both fleet and army, and then renewed his exclamations against the barons for deserting him. He next put to sea with a small army, and his subjects believed that he was resolved to expose himself to the utmost hazard for the defence and recovery of his dominions: but they were surprised, after a few days, to see him return again into harbour, without attempting any thing. [MN 1206.] In the subsequent season, he had the courage to carry his hostile measures a step farther. Gui de Thouars, who governed Britany, jealous of the rapid progress made by his ally, the French king, promised to join the King of England with all his forces; and John ventured abroad with a considerable army, and landed at Roch.e.l.le. He marched to Angers, which he took and reduced to ashes. But the approach of Philip with an army threw him into a panic; and he immediately made proposals for peace, and fixed a place of interview with his enemy: but instead of keeping his engagement, he stole off with his army, embarked at Roch.e.l.le, and returned, loaded with new shame and disgrace, into England. The mediation of the pope, procured him at last a truce for two years with the French monarch [z]; almost all the transmarine provinces were ravished from him; and his English barons, though hara.s.sed with arbitrary taxes and fruitless expeditions, saw themselves and their country baffled and affronted in every enterprise.

[FN [y] M. Paris, p. 146. M. West. p. 265. [z] Rymer, vol. i. p.

141.]

In an age when personal valour was regarded as the chief accomplishment, such conduct as that of John, always disgraceful, must be exposed to peculiar contempt; and he must thenceforth have expected to rule his turbulent va.s.sals with a very doubtful authority. But the government exercised by the Norman princes had wound up the royal power to so high a pitch, and so much beyond the usual tenour of the feudal const.i.tutions, that it still behoved him to be debased by new affronts and disgraces, ere his barons could entertain the view of conspiring against him, in order to retrench his prerogatives. The church, which at that time declined not a contest with the most powerful and vigorous monarchs, took first advantage of John's imbecility; and, with the most aggravating circ.u.mstances of insolence and scorn, fixed her yoke upon him.

[MN 1207. The king?s quarrel with the court of Rome.]

The papal chair was then filled by Innocent III., who, having attained that dignity at the age of thirty-seven years, and being endowed with a lofty and enterprising genius, gave full scope to his ambition, and attempted, perhaps more openly than any of his predecessors, to convert that superiority which was yielded him by all the European princes into a real dominion over them. The hierarchy, protected by the Roman pontiff, had already carried to an enormous height its usurpations upon the civil power; but in order to extend them farther, and render them useful to the court of Rome, it was necessary to reduce the ecclesiastics themselves under an absolute monarchy, and to make them entirely dependent on their spiritual leader. For this purpose, Innocent first attempted to impose taxes at pleasure upon the clergy; and in the first year of this century, taking advantage of the popular frenzy for crusades, he sent collectors over all Europe, who levied, by his authority, the fortieth of all ecclesiastical revenues for the relief of the Holy Land, and received the voluntary contributions of the laity to a like amount [a]. The same year Hubert, Archbishop of Canterbury, attempted another innovation, favourable to ecclesiastical and papal power: in the king's absence, he summoned, by his legatine authority, a synod of all the English clergy, contrary to the inhibition of Geoffrey Fitz-Peter, the chief justiciary; and no proper censure was ever pa.s.sed on this encroachment, the first of the kind, upon the royal power. But a favourable incident soon after happened, which enabled so aspiring a pontiff as Innocent to extend still farther his usurpations on so contemptible a prince as John.

[FN [a] Rymer, vol. i. p. 119.]

Hubert the primate died in 1205; and as the monks or canons of Christ- Church, Canterbury, possessed a right of voting in the election of their archbishop, some of the juniors of the order, who lay in wait for that event, met clandestinely the very night of Hubert's death, and, without any conge d'elire from the king, chose Reginald, their sub-prior, for the successor; installed him in the archiepiscopal throne before midnight; and, having enjoined him the strictest secrecy, sent him immediately to Rome, in order to solicit the confirmation of his election [b]. The vanity of Reginald prevailed over his prudence; and he no sooner arrived in Flanders, than he revealed to every one the purpose of his journey, which was immediately known in England [c]. The king was enraged at the novelty and temerity of the attempt, in filling so important an office without his knowledge or consent: the suffragan bishops of Canterbury, who were accustomed to concur in the choice of their primate, were no less displeased at the exclusion given them in this election: the senior monks of Christ-Church were injured by the irregular proceedings of their juniors: the juniors themselves, ashamed of their conduct, and disgusted with the levity of Reginald, who had broken his engagements with them, were willing to set aside his election [d]: and all men concurred in the design of remedying the false measures which had been taken. But as John knew that this affair would be canva.s.sed before a superior tribunal, where the interposition of royal authority in bestowing ecclesiastical benefices was very invidious; where even the cause of suffragan bishops was not so favourable as that of monks; he determined to make the new election entirely unexceptionable: he submitted the affair wholly to the canons of Christ-Church, and, departing from the right claimed by his predecessors, ventured no farther than to inform them privately, that they would do him an acceptable service if they chose John de Gray, Bishop of Norwich, for their primate [e]. The election of that prelate was accordingly made without a contradictory vote; and the king, to obviate all contests, endeavoured to persuade the suffragan bishops not to insist on their claim of concurring in the election; but those prelates, persevering in their pretensions, sent an agent to maintain their cause before Innocent; while the king and the convent of Christ-Church, despatched twelve monks of that order to support, before the same tribunal, the election of the Bishop of Norwich.

[FN [b] M. Paris, p. 148. M. West. p. 266. [c] Ibid. [d] M. West.

p. 266. [e] M. Paris, p. 149. M. West. p. 266.]

Thus there lay three different claims before the pope, whom all parties allowed to be the supreme arbiter in the contest. The claim of the suffragans, being so opposite to the usual maxims of the papal court, was soon set aside: the election of Reginald was so obviously fraudulent and irregular, that there was no possibility of defending it; but Innocent maintained that, though this election was null and invalid, it ought previously to have been declared such by the sovereign pontiff, before the monks could proceed to a new election; and that the choice of the Bishop of Norwich was of course as uncanonical as that of his compet.i.tor [f]. Advantage was therefore taken of this subtlety for introducing a precedent, by which the see of Canterbury, the most important dignity in the church after the papal throne, should ever after be at the disposal of the court of Rome.

[FN [f] M. Paris, p. 155. Chron. de Mailr. p. 182.]

While the pope maintained so many fierce contests, in order to wrest from princes the right of granting invest.i.tures, and to exclude laymen from all authority in conferring ecclesiastical benefices, he was supported by the united influence of the clergy, who, aspiring to independence, fought with all the ardour of ambition, and all the zeal of superst.i.tion, under his sacred banners. But no sooner was this point, after a great effusion of blood, and the convulsions of many states, established in some tolerable degree, than the victorious leader, as is usual, turned his arms against his own community, and aspired to centre all power in his person. By the invention of reserves, provisions, commendants, and other devices, the pope gradually a.s.sumed the right of filling vacant benefices; and the plenitude of his apostolic power, which was not subject to any limitations, supplied all defects of t.i.tle in the person on whom he bestowed preferment. The canons which regulated elections were purposely rendered intricate and involved: frequent disputes arose among candidates: appeals were every day carried to Rome: the apostolic see, besides reaping pecuniary advantages from these contests, often exercised the power of setting aside both the litigants, and, on pretence of appeasing faction, nominated a third person, who might be more acceptable to the contending parties.

The present controversy about the election to the see of Canterbury afforded Innocent an opportunity of claiming this right; and he failed not to perceive and avail himself of the advantage. He sent for the twelve monks deputed by the convent to maintain the cause of the Bishop of Norwich; and commanded them, under the penalty of excommunication, to choose for their primate Cardinal Langton, an Englishman by birth, but educated in France, and connected, by his interest and attachments, with the see of Rome [g]. [MN Cardinal Langton appointed Archbishop of Canterbury.] In vain did the monks represent, that they had received from their convent no authority for this purpose; that an election, without a previous writ from the king, would be deemed highly irregular; and that they were merely agents for another person, whose right they had no power or pretence to abandon.

None of them had the courage to persevere in this opposition, except one, Elias de Brantefield: all the rest, overcome by the menaces and authority of the pope, complied with his orders, and made the election required of them.

[FN [g] M. Paris, p. 155. Ann. Waverl. p. 169. W. Heming. p. 553.

Knyghton, p. 2415.]

Innocent, sensible that this flagrant usurpation would be highly resented by the court of England, wrote John a mollifying letter; sent him four golden rings set with precious stones; and endeavoured to enhance the value of the present by informing him of the many mysteries implied in it. He begged him to consider seriously the FORM of the rings, their NUMBER, their MATTER, and their COLOUR. Their form, he said, being round, shadowed out eternity, which had neither beginning nor end; and he ought thence to learn his duty of aspiring from earthly objects to heavenly, from things temporal to things eternal. The number four, being a square, denoted steadiness of mind, not to be subverted either by adversity or prosperity, fixed for ever on the firm basis of the four cardinal virtues. Gold, which is the matter, being the most precious of metals, signified wisdom, which is the most valuable of all accomplishments, and justly preferred by Solomon to riches, power, and all exterior attainments. The blue colour of the sapphire represented faith; the verdure of the emerald, hope; the redness of the ruby, charity; and the splendour of the topaz, good works [h]. By these conceits Innocent endeavoured to repay John for one of the most important prerogatives of his crown, which he had ravished from him; conceits probably admired by Innocent himself: for it is easily possible for a man, especially in a barbarous age, to unite strong talents for business with an absurd taste for literature and the arts.

[FN [h] Rymer, vol. i. p. 139. M. Paris, p. 155.]

John was inflamed with the utmost rage when he heard of this attempt of the court of Rome [i]; and he immediately vented his pa.s.sion on the monks of Christ-Church, whom he found inclined to support the election made by their fellows at Rome. He sent Fulke de Cantelupe, and Henry de Cornhulle, two knights of his retinue, men of violent tempers and rude manners, to expel them the convent, and take possession of their revenues. These knights entered the monastery with drawn swords, commanded the prior and the monks to depart the kingdom, and menaced them, that, in case of disobedience, they would instantly burn them with the convent [k]. Innocent, prognosticating, from the violence and imprudence of these measures, that John would finally sink in the contest, persevered the more vigorously in his pretensions, and exhorted the king not to oppose G.o.d and the church any longer, nor to prosecute that cause for which the holy martyr, St. Thomas, had sacrificed his life, and which had exalted him equal to the highest saints in heaven [l]: a clear hint to John to profit by the example of his father; and to remember the prejudices and established principles of his subjects, who bore a profound veneration to that martyr, and regarded his merits as the subject of their chief glory and exultation.

[FN [i] Rymer, vol. i. p. 143. [k] M. Paris, p. 156. Trivet, p. 151.

Ann. Waverl. p. 169. [l] M. Paris, p. 157.]

Innocent, finding that John was not sufficiently tamed to submission, sent three prelates, the Bishops of London, Ely, and Worcester, to intimate, that if he persevered in his disobedience, the sovereign pontiff would be obliged to lay the kingdom under an interdict [m].

All the other prelates threw themselves on their knees before him, and entreated him, with tears in their eyes, to prevent the scandal of this sentence, by making a speedy submission to his spiritual father, by receiving from his hands the new-elected primate, and by restoring the monks of Christ-Church to all their rights and possessions. He burst out into the most indecent invectives against the prelates; swore by G.o.d's teeth, (his usual oath,) that if the pope presumed to lay his kingdom under an interdict, he would send to him all the bishops and clergy of England, and would confiscate all their estates; and threatened that, if thenceforth he caught any Romans in his dominions, he would put out their eyes and cut off their noses, in order to set a mark upon them which might distinguish them from all other nations [n]. Amidst all this idle violence, John stood on such bad terms with his n.o.bility, that he never dared to a.s.semble the states of the kingdom, who, in so just a cause, would probably have adhered to any other monarch, and have defended with vigour the liberties of the nation against these palpable usurpations of the court of Rome. [MN Interdict of the kingdom.] Innocent, therefore, perceiving the king's weakness, fulminated at last the sentence of interdict, which he had for some time held suspended over him [o].

[FN [m] Ibid. [n] Ibid. [o] M. Paris, p. 157. Trivet, p. 152. Ann.

Waverl. p. 170. M. West. p. 268.]

The sentence of interdict was at that time the great instrument of vengeance and policy employed by the court of Rome; was denounced against sovereigns for the lightest offences; and made the guilt of one person involve the ruin of millions, even in their spiritual and eternal welfare. The execution of it was calculated to strike the senses in the highest degree, and to operate with irresistible force on the superst.i.tious minds of the people. The nation was of a sudden deprived of all exterior exercise of its religion: the altars were despoiled of their ornaments: the crosses, the relics, the images, the statues of the saints, were laid on the ground; and, as if the air itself were profaned, and might pollute them by its contact, the priests carefully covered them up, even from their own approach and veneration. The use of bells entirely ceased in all the churches: the bells themselves were removed from the steeples, and laid on the ground with the other sacred utensils. Ma.s.s was celebrated with shut doors, and none but the priests were admitted to that holy inst.i.tution. The laity partook of no religious rite, except baptism to new-born infants, and the communion to the dying: the dead were not interred in consecrated ground: they were thrown into ditches, or buried in common fields; and their obsequies were not attended with prayers or any hallowed ceremony. Marriage was celebrated in the church-yard [p]; and that every action in life might bear the marks of this dreadful situation, the people were prohibited the use of meat, as in Lent, or times of the highest penance; were debarred from all pleasures and entertainments; and were forbidden even to salute each other, or so much as to shave their beards, and give any decent attention to their person and apparel. Every circ.u.mstance carried symptoms of the deepest distress, and of the most immediate apprehension of divine vengeance and indignation.

[FN [p] Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 51.]

The king, that he might oppose HIS temporal to THEIR spiritual terrors, immediately, from his own authority, confiscated the estates of all the clergy who obeyed the interdict [q]; banished the prelates, confined the monks in their convent, and gave them only such a small allowance from their own estates as would suffice to provide them with food and raiment. He treated with the utmost rigour all Langton's adherents, and every one that showed any disposition to obey the commands of Rome; and in order to distress the clergy in the tenderest point, and at the same time expose them to reproach and ridicule, he threw into prison all their concubines, and required high fines as the price of their liberty [r].

[FN [q] Ann. Waverl. p. 170. [r] M. Paris, p. 158. Ann. Waverl. p.

170.]

After the canons which established the celibacy of the clergy were, by the zealous endeavours of Archbishop Anselm, more rigorously executed in England, the ecclesiastics gave, almost universally, and avowedly, in to the use of concubinage; and the court of Rome, which had no interest in prohibiting this practice, made very slight opposition to it. The custom was become so prevalent, that, in some cantons of Switzerland, before the reformation, the laws not only permitted, but, to avoid scandal, enjoined the use of concubines to the younger clergy [s]; and it was usual every where for priests to apply to the ordinary, and obtain from him a formal liberty for this indulgence.

The bishop commonly took care to prevent the practice from degenerating into licentiousness: he confined the priest to the use of one woman, required him to be constant to her bed, obliged him to provide for her subsistence and that of her children; and though the offspring was, in the eye of the law, deemed illegitimate, this commerce was really a kind of inferior marriage, such as is still practised in Germany among the n.o.bles; and may be regarded by the candid as an appeal from the tyranny of civil and ecclesiastical inst.i.tutions, to the more virtuous and more unerring laws of nature.

[FN [s] Padre Paolo, Hist. Conc. Trid. lib. I.]

The quarrel between the king and the see of Rome continued for some years; and though many of the clergy, from the fear of punishment, obeyed the orders of John, and celebrated divine service, they complied with the utmost reluctance, and were regarded, both by themselves and the people, as men who betrayed their principles, and sacrificed their conscience to temporal regards and interests. During this violent situation, the king, in order to give a l.u.s.tre to his government, attempted military expeditions against Scotland, against Ireland, against the Welsh [t]; and he commonly prevailed, more from the weakness of his enemies, than from his own vigour or abilities.

Meanwhile, the danger to which his government stood continually exposed from the discontents of the ecclesiastics increased his natural propension to tyranny; and he seems to have even wantonly disgusted all orders of men, especially his n.o.bles, from whom alone he could reasonably expect support and a.s.sistance. He dishonoured their families by his licentious amours; he published edicts, prohibiting them from hunting feathered game, and thereby restrained them from their favourite occupation and amus.e.m.e.nt [u]; he ordered all the hedges and fences near his forests to be levelled, that his deer might have more ready access into the fields for pasture; and he continually loaded the nation with arbitrary impositions. [MN 1208.] Conscious of the general hatred which he had incurred, he required his n.o.bility to give him hostages for security of their allegiance; and they were obliged to put into his hands their sons, nephews, or near relations.

When his messengers came with like orders to the castle of William de Braouse, a baron of great note, the lady of that n.o.bleman replied, that she would never intrust her son into the hands of one who had murdered his own nephew while in his custody. Her husband reproved her for the severity of this speech; but, sensible of his danger, he immediately fled with his wife and son into Ireland, where he endeavoured to conceal himself. The king discovered the unhappy family in their retreat; seized the wife and son, whom he starved to death in prison; and the baron himself narrowly escaped, by flying into France.

[FN [t] W. Heming. p. 556. Ypod. Neust, p. 460. Knyghton, p. 2420.

[u] M. West. p. 268.]

[MN 1209.] The court of Rome had artfully contrived a gradation of sentences, by which it kept offenders in awe; still affording them an opportunity of preventing the next anathema by submission; and in case of their obstinacy, was able to refresh the horror of the people against them by new denunciations of the wrath and vengeance of Heaven. As the sentence of interdict had not produced the desired effect on John, and as his people, though extremely discontented, had hitherto been restrained from rising in open rebellion against him, he was soon to look for the sentence of excommunication; and he had reason to apprehend, that, notwithstanding all his precautions, the most dangerous consequences might ensue from it. He was witness of the other scenes, which, at that very time, were acting in Europe, and which displayed the unbounded and uncontrolled power of the papacy.

Innocent, far from being dismayed at his contests with the King of England, had excommunicated the Emperor Otho, John's nephew [w]; and soon brought that powerful and haughty prince to submit to his authority. He published a crusade against the Abigenses, a species of enthusiasts in the south of France, whom he denominated heretics, because, like other enthusiasts, they neglected the rites of the church, and opposed the power and influence of the clergy: the people from all parts of Europe, moved by their superst.i.tion and their pa.s.sion for wars and adventures, flocked to his standard: Simon de Montfort, the general of the crusade, acquired to himself a sovereignty in these provinces: the Count of Toulouse, who protected, or perhaps only tolerated the Albigenses, was stripped of his dominions: and these sectaries themselves, though the most innocent and inoffensive of mankind, were exterminated with all the circ.u.mstances of extreme violence and barbarity. Here were therefore both an army and a general, dangerous from their zeal and valour, who might be directed to act against John; and Innocent, after keeping the thunder long suspended, gave, at last, authority to the Bishops of London, Ely, and Worcester, to fulminate the sentence of excommunication against him [x]. [MN Excommunication of the king.]

These prelates obeyed; though their brethren were deterred from publis.h.i.+ng, as the pope required of them, the sentence in the several churches of their dioceses.

[FN [w] M. Paris, p. 160. Trivet, p. 154. M. West. p. 269. [x] M.

Paris, p. 159. M. West. p. 270.]

No sooner was the excommunication known, than the effects of it appeared. Geoffrey, Archdeacon of Norwich, who was intrusted with a considerable office in the court of exchequer, being informed of it while sitting on the bench, observed to his colleagues the danger of serving under an excommunicated king; and he immediately left his chair, and departed the court. John gave orders to seize him, to throw him into prison, to cover his head with a great leaden cope; and, by this and other severe usage, he soon put an end to his life [y]: nor was there any thing wanting to Geoffrey, except the dignity and rank of Becket, to exalt him to an equal station in heaven with that great and celebrated martyr. Hugh de Wells, the chancellor, being elected by the king's appointment Bishop of Lincoln, upon a vacancy in that see, desired leave to go abroad, in order to receive consecration from the Archbishop of Rouen; but he no sooner reached France than he hastened to Pontigny, where Langton then resided, and paid submissions to him as his primate. The bishops, finding themselves exposed either to the jealousy of the king or hatred of the people, gradually stole out of the kingdom; and, at last, there remained only three prelates to perform the functions of the episcopal office [z]. Many of the n.o.bility, terrified by John?s tyranny, and obnoxious to him on different accounts, imitated the example of the bishops; and most of the others who remained were, with reason, suspected of having secretly entered into a confederacy against him [a]. John was alarmed at his dangerous situation; a situation which prudence, vigour, and popularity might formerly have prevented, but which no virtues or abilities were now sufficient to retrieve. He desired a conference with Langton at Dover; offered to acknowledge him as primate, to submit to the pope, to restore the exiled clergy, even to pay them a limited sum as a compensation for the rents of their confiscated estates. But Langton, perceiving his advantage, was not satisfied with these concessions: he demanded that full rest.i.tution and reparation should be made to all the clergy; a condition so exorbitant, that the king, who probably had not the power of fulfilling it, and who foresaw that this estimation of damages might amount to an immense sum, finally broke off the conference [b].

[FN [y] M. Paris, p. 159. [z] Ann. Waverl. p. 170. Ann. Marg. p. 14.

[a] M. Paris, p. 162. M. West. p. 270, 271. [b] Ann. Waverl. p.

171.]

[MN 1212.] The next gradation of papal sentences was to absolve John's subjects from their oaths of fidelity and allegiance, and to declare every one excommunicated who had any commerce with him in public or in private; at his table, in his council, or even in private conversation [c]; and this sentence was accordingly, with all imaginable solemnity, p.r.o.nounced against him. But as John still persevered in his contumacy, there remained nothing but the sentence of deposition; which, though intimately connected with the former, had been distinguished from it by the artifice of the court of Rome; and Innocent determined to dart this last thunderbolt against the refractory monarch. But as a sentence of this kind required an armed force to execute it, the pontiff, casting his eyes around, fixed at last on Philip, King of France, as the person into whose powerful hand he could most properly intrust that weapon, the ultimate resource of his ghostly authority. And he offered the monarch, besides the remission of all his sins and endless spiritual benefits, the property and possession of the kingdom of England, as the reward of his labour [d].

[FN [c] M. Paris, p. 161. M. West. p. 270. [d] M. Paris, p. 162. M.

West. p. 271.]

[MN 1213.] It was the common concern of all princes to oppose these exorbitant pretensions of the Roman pontiff, by which they themselves were rendered va.s.sals, and va.s.sals totally dependent, of the papal crown: yet even Philip, the most able monarch of the age, was seduced by present interest, and by the prospect of so tempting a prize, to accept this liberal offer of the pontiff, and thereby to ratify that authority which, if he ever opposed its boundless usurpations, might, next day, tumble him from the throne. He levied a great army; summoned all the va.s.sals of the crown to attend him at Rouen; collected a fleet of seventeen hundred vessels, great and small, in the sea-ports of Normandy and Picardy; and partly from the zealous spirit of the age, partly from the personal regard universally paid him, prepared a force, which seemed equal to the greatness of his enterprise. The king, on the other hand, issued out writs, requiring the attendance of all his military tenants at Dover, and even of all able-bodied men, to defend the kingdom in this dangerous extremity. A great number appeared; and he selected an army of sixty thousand men; a power invincible, had they been united in affection to their prince, and animated with a becoming zeal for the defence of their native country [e]. But the people were swayed by superst.i.tion, and regarded their king with horror, as anathematized by papal censures: the barons, besides lying under the same prejudices, were all disgusted by his tyranny, and were, many of them, suspected of holding a secret correspondence with the enemy; and the incapacity and cowardice of the king himself, ill fitted to contend with those mighty difficulties, made men prognosticate the most fatal effects from the French invasion.

[FN [e] M. Paris, p. 163. M. West. p. 271.]

Pandolf, whom the pope had chosen for his legate, and appointed to head this important expedition, had, before he left Rome, applied for a secret conference with his master, and had asked him, whether, if the King of England, in this desperate situation, were willing to submit to the apostolic see, the church should, without the consent of Philip, grant him any terms of accommodation [f]! Innocent, expecting from his agreement with a prince so abject both in character and fortune, more advantages than from his alliance with a great and victorious monarch, who, after such mighty acquisitions, might become too haughty to be bound by spiritual chains, explained to Pandolf the conditions on which he was willing to be reconciled to the King of England. The legate, therefore, as soon as he arrived in the north of France, sent over two Knights Templars to desire an interview with John at Dover, which was readily granted: he there represented to him, in such strong and probably in such true colours, his lost condition, the disaffection of his subjects, the secret combination of his va.s.sals against him, the mighty armament of France, that John yielded at discretion [g], and subscribed to all the conditions which Pandolf was pleased to impose upon him. [MN 13th May. The king?s submission to the pope.] He promised, among other articles, that he would submit himself entirely to the judgment of the pope; that he would acknowledge Langton for primate; that he would restore all the exiled clergy and laity, who had been banished on account of the contest; that he would make them full rest.i.tution of their goods, and compensation for all damages, and instantly consign eight thousand pounds in part of payment; and that every one outlawed or imprisoned for his adherence to the pope should immediately be received into grace and favour [h]. Four barons swore, along with the king, to the observance of this ignominious treaty [i].

[FN [f] M. Paris, p. 162. [g] M. West. p. 271. [h] Rymer, vol. i. p.

166. M. Paris, p. 163. Annal. Burt. p. 268. [i] Rymer, vol. i. p.

170. M. Paris, p. 163.]

But the ignominy of the king was not yet carried to its full height.

Pandolf required him, as the first trial of obedience, to resign his kingdom to the church; and he persuaded him, that he could nowise so effectually disappoint the French invasion as by thus putting himself under the immediate protection of the apostolic see. John, lying under the agonies of present terror, made no scruple of submitting to this condition. He pa.s.sed a charter, in which he said, that, not constrained by fear, but of his own free will, and by the common advice and consent of his barons, he had, for remission of his own sins, and those of his family, resigned England and Ireland, to G.o.d, to St. Peter and St. Paul, and to Pope Innocent and his successors in the apostolic chair: he agreed to hold these dominions as feudatory of the church of Rome, by the annual payment of a thousand marks; seven hundred for England, three hundred for Ireland: and he stipulated that if he or his successors should ever presume to revoke or infringe this charter, they should instantly, except upon admonition they repented of their offence, forfeit all right to their dominions [k].

[FN [k] Rymer, vol. i. p. 176. M. Paris, p. 165.]

[MN 15th May.] In consequence of this agreement, John did homage to Pandolf, as the pope's legate, with all the submissive rites which the feudal law required of va.s.sals before their liege lord and superior.

He came disarmed into the legate's presence, who was seated on a throne; he flung himself on his knees before him; he lifted up his joined hands, and put them within those of Pandolf; he swore fealty to the pope; and he paid part of the tribute which he owed for his kingdom as the patrimony of St. Peter. The legate, elated by this supreme triumph of sacerdotal power, could not forbear discovering extravagant symptoms of joy and exultation: he trampled on the money, which was laid at his feet as an earnest of the subjection of the kingdom; an insolence of which, however offensive to all the English, no one present, except the Archbishop of Dublin, dared to take any notice. But though Pandolf had brought the king to submit to these base conditions, he still refused to free him from the excommunication and interdict, till an estimation should be taken of the losses of the ecclesiastics, and full compensation and rest.i.tution should be made them.

John, reduced to this abject situation under a foreign power, still showed the same disposition to tyrannize over his subjects, which had been the chief cause of all his misfortunes. One Peter of Pomfret, a hermit, had foretold that the king, this very year, should lose his crown; and for that rash prophecy he had been thrown into prison in Corfe-castle. John now determined to bring him to punishment as an impostor; and though the man pleaded that his prophecy was fulfilled, and that the king had lost the royal and independent crown which he formerly wore, the defence was supposed to aggravate his guilt: he was dragged at horses' tails to the town of Warham, and there hanged on a gibbet with his son [l].