DEATH OF RICHARD I., ETC.

101

himself, or of God, whose place he held upon earth; but would punish, without delay, and without respect of persons, every one who presumed to disobey his commands, in order to convince the whole world that he was determined to act in a royal manner."* To such an intolerable height of impiety and arrogance had this audacious priest arrived! These bulls had the desired effect; the king and archbishop were terrified at the thunders of the church, and being convinced of the danger and vanity of resistance, they determined to obey.

Thus did the pertinacious monks obtain a complete victory over their king and primate, and had the satisfaction of seeing the obnoxious buildings razed to the very foundation, in the months of January and February, A.D. 1199, a little before the death of King Richard, who died on the 24th of March following, of a mortal wound which he received abroad, after a reign of ten years, not one of which was passed in England, the seat of his empire, and the principal source of his wealth and strength.

Richard was succeeded by King John, one of the most contemptible of princes, who, to get possession of the crown, was the murderer of his elder brother, Arthur. It is to the weakness and pusillanimity of John, however, that the people of England are indebted for "Magna Charta,”—the great charter of their constitutional liberty and civil rights,-though it does not fall within my province to detail the circumstances connected with this important subject. What I have to do with, is the ecclesiastical affairs of the kingdom, and those during the reign of King John certainly are sufficiently interesting to engage our attention. If Pope Innocent III. acted in a manner so imperious towards the lion-hearted Richard, we need not be surprised at finding him domineering with still greater insolence over his indolent, pusillanimous successor, King John.

On the 18th July, 1205, the death of Hubert, archbishop of Canterbury, took place, and was followed by consequences so singular and important, that they call for a particular recital in this place.

The monks of the cathedral of Canterbury, as has been already

* Gervas, Chron, col. 1616-1624.

mentioned, claimed an exclusive right to elect their archbishops; but this right had always been disputed by the kings of England and the prelates of the province. On the present occasion, the monks determined to exclude their competitors from any share in the election, by making a secret and sudden choice, before the vacancy could be generally known. As soon, therefore, as they heard of the death of Hubert, they held a chapter in the nighttime, and chose their own sub-prior, Reginald, to be archbishop, and placed him in the archiepiscopal throne. They, at the same time, obliged Reginald to take an oath, that he would not publish his election without the consent of the convent, and sent him away next morning, with some of their own number, to Rome, in order to obtain the approbation of the pope. The scheme was well contrived, and would probably have succeeded, if the vanity of Reginald had not got the better of his prudence, and even the obligation of his oath. But no sooner had he crossed the Channel, than he assumed the state of the Archbishop-elect of Canterbury, and shewed the letters of his election to several persons. The news of this soon reached England, and occasioned no little noise. The monks were so enraged at this foolish conduct of their elect, that they determined to abandon him, in order to make their peace with the king, whose indignation they justly dreaded. They accordingly appointed a deputation to wait upon the king, to ask his permission to proceed to the election of an archbishop, and, to obtain it, they secretly agreed to choose John de Gray, the then bishop of Norwich, which was accordingly done, with the king's licence. That nothing might be wanting to render his election valid, some of the monks were despatched to Rome to procure the pope's sanction.*

The hour of perplexity, however, soon arrived: this affair which was already sufficiently embarrassed by a double election, became increasingly so by the appearance of a third party. The bishops of the province, who had always claimed a share in the election of their metropolitan, had been totally neglected in the late elections. They therefore sent their agents to Rome to complain of this neglect, and to protest against both elections, as invalid on that

Matt. Paris, pp. 148, 149.

THE PRIMACY CLAIMED BY THREE COMPETITORS.

103

account. Nothing could be more agreeable to Pope Innocent III. than the appearance of so many parties and so many clashing claims. Vast sums of money were expended, and a whole year was employed in pleadings, audiences, hearing witnesses, and examining records. At length, when one part of this great controversy was ripe for decision, the pope issued a bull, dated 21st December, 1206, declaring that from thenceforward the suffragans of the province of Canterbury should not pretend to any share in the election of their metropolitan, nor disturb the monks of the cathedral in the enjoyment of their exclusive right to chuse their archbishop.

Having thus determined the dispute between the bishops and the monks, his holiness proceeded to examine the great point of controversy between the two archbishops-elect. The agents of both parties supported their respective claims with equal eagerness and obstinacy. When more than a year had been spent in pleadings and investigations on the subject, the sovereign pontiff pronounced a definitive sentence, declaring both elections irregular and uncanonical, and decreeing that neither of the persons should be capable of being chosen Archbishop of Canterbury.

The see of Canterbury being thus declared vacant, the pope began to unfold his scheme, which was that of filling it with a creature of his own, without so much as consulting any of the parties at home. In order to this, he commanded such of the monks of Canterbury as happened to be then at Rome immediately to proceed to the election of an archbishop, and at the same time commanded them to chuse Cardinal Stephen Langton. The monks objected, that they were incompetent to do this without the consent of their convent; but the pope hastily replied, that his authority supplied all defects. The monks, fourteen in number, who had been agents for the Bishop of Norwich, laboured under another and still greater difficulty. Before they left England, they had solemnly sworn to the king-who dreaded that they might be corrupted at the court of Rome-that they would never acknowledge any person for Archbishop of Canterbury but the Bishop of Norwich, who was a personal favourite of the king. But the plenitude of papal power soon removed this obstacle. His holiness at once absolved them from the obligation of their

oaths, and commanded them immediately to proceed to an election, under penalty of the highest censures of the church, with which they all complied except one. In this way Langton was chosen Archbishop of Canterbury by a few monks at Rome, and consecrated by the pope himself, at Viterbo, on the 27th June, A.D. 1207. Apprehensive that this unprecedented transaction would rouse the indignation of the King of England, Pope Innocent endeavoured beforehand to soothe the mind of that prince. With this view he sent him four rings of gold, set with four different kinds of precious stones, accompanied with a flattering letter, which contained an illustration of the mysteries represented by those rings. King John, who was equally fond of trinkets and of flattery, was much gratified by this papal present; but the satisfaction was of short duration. A few days afterwards, the bull arrived announcing the election and consecration of Cardinal Langton, which threw the king into a violent rage against both the pope and the monks of Canterbury. As these last were most within his reach, they felt the first effects of his indignation. He despatched two officers, with a company of armed men, to Canterbury, who took possession of the convent of the Holy Trinity, banished the monks out of the kingdom, and seized all their estates.

John next wrote a spirited and angry letter to the pope, in which he accused him of injustice and presumption, in raising a stranger to the highest dignity in the kingdom, without his knowledge. He reproached the pope and court of Rome with ingratitude, in behaving as they had done towards a country from which they derived more money than from all the other kingdoms on this side the Alps. He declared that he was determined to sacrifice his life in defence of the rights of his crown; and that, if his holiness did not immediately repair the injury he had done him, he would break off all communication with Rome. This letter, though written in a strain very becoming a King of England, was quite intolerable to the pride of the haughty pontiff, who had been long accustomed to trample on the majesty of kings. Innocent was not tardy in returning an answer, in which, after many expressions of displeasure and resentment, he plainly tells the king, that if he persisted in this dispute, he would plunge himself into inextricable difficulties, and at length be crushed by him,

KING JOHN EXCOMMUNICATED BY THE pope.

105

before whom every knee must bow, of things in heaven, and things on earth, and things under the earth.*

These letters might be regarded in the light of a formal declaration of war between the pope and the King of England; but the contest was very unequal. The former had now attained that extravagant height of power which made the greatest monarchs tremble upon their thrones; and the latter had sunk very low in both his reputation and authority, having before this time lost his foreign dominions by his indolence, and the esteem and affection of his subjects at home by his follies and his crimes. Indeed, the pope was not ignorant of the advantage he possessed in the contest; and consequently, without delay, he laid all the dominions of King John under an interdict; and this sentence was published in England, at the pope's command, March 23rd, a. D. 1208, by the Bishops of London, Ely, and Worcester, though the king endeavoured to deter them from it by the most dreadful threats. These, however, were unavailing; for, from that time, the churches were shut up, and the clergy refrained from performing any of the duties of their function, except hearing confessions, baptizing infants, and administering the viaticum. The king was so much enraged against the clergy for obeying the interdict, that he commanded his sheriffs to seize all their lands and revenues in their several counties, and withdraw from them the protection of the laws, by which they were exposed to injuries of all kinds. To avoid these evils, some of them fled into foreign parts, others confined themselves within the precincts of their churches, and the whole kingdom was a scene of confusion and dismay.

When this interdict had continued about two years, the pope proceeded a step further, and pronounced the awful sentence of excommunication against King John, which he commanded the Bishops of London, Ely, and Worcester, his most obsequious tools, to publish in England. These prelates, who then resided on the continent, sent copies of the sentence, and of the pope's commands to publish it in their churches, to the bishops and clergy who remained in England. But such was their dread of the royal indignation, that none of them had the courage to execute these

M. Paris, pp. 156, 157.