test against the confirmation, on the ground that the royal assent had not been obtained before the election. On this plea the business was adjourned, to enable the king's representatives to prove this right before the officials of Canterbury. This was not done, even after repeated warnings, and finally the pope directed the archbishop to confirm the election, whether the royal assent should have been asked or not.1

Innocent IV was at this time evidently inclined to insist upon his right to present foreigners to English livings, however unpopular the exercise of the right might be. In 1248 he appointed the dean of Wells to act on his behalf in compensating a Roman cleric for not having received institution to a benefice to which he had been provided. Two years before, 15th January, 1246, John Asten, papal sub-deacon and chaplain, had been granted a prebend in the diocese of London, which had formerly been held by another Roman, lately dead, and the bishop of London was directed to install him. This the bishop had refused or neglected to do; and so, in July 1248, the dean of Wells was ordered to deal with the matter, and to grant to John Asten out of the revenues of the See of London an annuity equal to the value of the prebend at St. Paul's.3

At Abingdon trouble came from the same cause. The abbot had received from the pope an order to provide a Roman ecclesiastic with a suitable benefice. The foreigner in question, not wishing to take any living, waited patiently until the best vicarage at the disposal of the monks, that of St. Helen's, Abingdon, fell vacant, when he claimed it by virtue of the Apostolic grant. The same day the abbot received a request, that was virtually an order, from the

1 Registres d' Innocent IV, i. No. 3,669.

3

2 P. R. O. Papal Bulls, Bundle xx. No. 44. Ibid., Bundle xix. No. 29.

king, that the living should be given to his half-brother, Aethelmar. The community, when consulted, considered that the better course would be to please the king, and they bestowed the benefice as he desired. The Roman ecclesiastic, however, was far from pleased that his claim had been set aside, even at the king's desire, and he complained to the pope, who at once ordered the abbot to appear personally before him at Lyons. At first the abbot, John de Blomerie, hoped to secure the king's protection for himself and his convent in this matter, and, as he was a very old man in infirm health, trusted through Henry's influence to be allowed merely to send proctors to represent him. But the king, having got what he wished, had no desire to help the abbot, who was obliged to make the journey to Lyons. At the Curia, after long delays, and at considerable cost to the abbey, it was decided that the Roman ecclesiastic was to be consoled for his disappointment by receiving an annuity of fifty marks out of the abbatial revenue.1

The year 1249 was begun by the king's exaction of large sums of money from the London citizens under the title of New Year's gifts. He suspended their right of holding a market in favour of a new one he set up at Westminster, but offered to allow them to purchase a new grant by the payment of two thousand marks. At the same time he invited many of the nobles to come to Westminster at the Epiphany to keep St. Edward's feast, which this year was celebrated with great pomp. As he could not get them, as a body, to consent to give him the money he needed, he applied to individuals, representing his poverty, and that he was bound to meet at once a debt of thirty thousand marks. He appealed also to their patriotism, representing the need of recovering lost possessions in France.

1 Matthew Paris, v. 39-40.

As it was known, however, that the pope had prohibited him from in any way attacking the French king's possessions whilst he was away on the crusade, this suggested reason for requiring money only raised a smile. In this design for extorting assistance, therefore, Henry did not succed, although it was hinted somewhat mysteriously that the pope's representative, Master Albert, had received papal powers to place England under an interdict if the people still rebelled against the royal demands.

Failing with the nobility, the king next turned his attention to the religious houses, and endeavoured to obtain the much needed money as a present, or at any rate as a loan, from various abbots. Early in 1249, whilst on the road to Huntingdon, he sent for Ranulf, the abbot of Ramsey, and earnestly begged him to give him a hundred pounds, or at least to lend him the sum. "I am really in want," he said, "and I must have money at once." The abbot, taken by surprise, was forced to raise the money at heavy interest from the Florentine usurers. In the same way he tried the abbot of Peterborough, declaring that no beggar needed help more than he, their king, did. Abbot William, however, knowing the pecuniary condition of his house, was firm in his refusal to burden it still further with debt; but from the abbot of St. Alban's, by similar complaints as to his poverty, he obtained sixty marks. This success, with these and other abbots singly, emboldened Henry to demand a general contribution from all the religious houses in Essex and Hertford. He wished, he wrote, to test the friendship of his devoted and faithful subjects, by asking their assistance to enable him to protect the rights of his kingdom; and, as the truce between England and France was at an end, it was necessary to endeavour at once to recover the ancient possessions of the

Crown beyond the seas. To do this would entail great expenses, and he consequently had turned to them, and had sent Simon Passelew with the sheriffs to explain his needs and to collect what they would no doubt "so abundantly offer to him, as to deserve his royal thanks and great reward." At the same time it was known that the money was not required for the purposes he had named, but to pay the debts he, contrary to his promises, had incurred in Poitou and Gascony, since the truce between the kings of England and France had been prolonged.2

On 23rd January, 1249, the pope issued another Bull concerning those royal estates which had at any time during his reign been granted away. It was couched in almost identical language to the one previously issued on the same subject to the nobles and prelates, and authorised the king to make a resumption of all such Crown possessions, notwithstanding any previous promise. At this time, Archbishop Boniface was about to return to England in order that his long-delayed enthronisation at Canterbury might at last take place. A letter from the pope, giving him power to reward some of his clerks with benefices in any part of his province except in the dioceses of Lincoln and Salisbury, marks his departure from the Curia.* A warning in the same year, addressed to the prebendaries of Chichester, shows that the archbishop intended to enforce, to the fullest extent, rights which had been given him by the pope, in regard to the first fruits of all English canonries. On the death of a prebendary, it had been the custom, approved of by more than one pope, that the first year's revenues should be divided, one part going to the prebendary newly appointed, and the other to the cathedral church. On re

ceiving notice of the papal gift of the first year's income for seven years to the archbishop, the canons of Chichester had concluded that this only applied to the half, which under ordinary circumstances would have gone to the new prebendary, as they considered that the other half already belonged to the cathedral fabric, with the sanction of previous popes. They were now undeceived; and they were threatened with extreme spiritual penalties unless the whole sum was paid to the archbishop in order to extinguish the debts of his See.' On All Saints' day, 1249, the archbishop was enthroned in the presence of the king and queen and most of the English prelates. He had been elected in 1240, confirmed by the pope in 1245, and now, after nearly nine years, and when already his predecessor, St. Edmund, had been canonised for more than two years, at length took possession of his See.

1 Wilkins, i. 696.

2 Matthew Paris, v. So.