revenues during the vacancies. Henry was repentant, and once again he promised that all complaints should be redressed; but even this did not satisfy the meeting. His counsellors had bitter remembrances of broken promises. The past brought visions of a similar future, and so they agreed to grant no pecuniary assistance until the 8th of July following, and thus to allow a six months' trial of the king's good dispositions. They promised that if during that period Henry would act up to his professions, they would then be disposed to give him all he asked of them.' When on 8th July, the day appointed, parliament again assembled, the members fully believed that the king would be prepared to show himself amenable to the reasonable wishes of his subjects. They were, however, quickly undeceived. Henry at once declared his unwillingness to be dictated to by his subjects, or to be bound by any conditions which they might wish to impose upon him. It was his place, he said, to rule, theirs to obey: "the servant is not above his lord nor the disciple above his master," he said (quoting St. Matthew's gospel), " and I should not be your king, but a mere slave, if I were to bow in this way to your will." Parliament, notwithstanding the royal attitude, was firm in its refusal to grant the money without the promised reforms, and so the king hastily dissolved the assembly. The money asked for was, however, now imperatively necessary. To obtain it, Henry sold his plate and jewels to the City of London, but apparently with the secret design of some day or other recovering his valuables from them. Pope Innocent IV chose this moment to remind the king that the annual English tribute of a thousand marks to the Holy See was now due, and to ask that it might be paid over to 1 Matthew Paris, v. 6-8. the Knights Templars at Lyons, from whom he had borrowed the sum in anticipation.' At this same time, also, the pope was actively stirring up the bishops of Lincoln and Worcester, who were his agents in the matter of the crusade, to see that proper collections for this purpose were made in the country. Henry, however, had already come to an understanding with the pope. On his promise to take the cross, which he made in the summer of 1247, he had requested the Holy Father to allow him, towards the necessary expenses of his preparations for the crusade, the various sums collected in England for the purpose; and Innocent IV had replied by praising the king for his “true faith and devotion towards his mother the Roman Church, which he had so often experienced," and by promising to write to the bishops of Lincoln and Worcester on the matter. This the pope did the same day, announcing that Henry was to start within a year after the French expedition had sailed, and telling them to satisfy their king as to the payment to him of the collections for the Holy Land.* At Henry's request the pontiff wrote also to St. Louis of France and to Queen Blanche, begging them to allow Guy, son of the earl of March, to be freed from his promise to go with the French force, as it was proposed to make him leader of the English crusaders. Although at this period the number of presentations of foreigners made by the pope to English benefices was comparatively few, they were still sufficiently numerous to keep the popular attention fixed on the subject. Archbishop Boniface, writing from the Curia to Bishop Grosseteste, passed on to him a papal command to find a benefice 1 P.R.O. Papal Bulls, Bundle liii. No. 3. 3 Ibid., No. 4,054. or benefices, with or without the cure of souls, to the value of three hundred marks, for Robert, son of the duke of Burgundy. "Though we are bound," says the pope's letter, "to desire to provide for all who ask this favour from us, we are more constrained to have a special care for those who are sprung from a noble stock, when they have merited our Apostolic gratitude by their true devotion." Remembering therefore the true and sincere service shown to us and the Roman Church "by the duke of Burgundy, we desire to give him a proof of the love we bear him, by extending our service to his children also." For this reason Archbishop Boniface was ordered, under severe censures, to find the youth a suitable benefice in the province of Canterbury; and he, in his turn, forwarded the order to the bishop of Lincoln; and, under similar penalties, he prohibited him from conferring any benefice whatsoever in his diocese on any individual, until this command of the pope has been carried out,' and the son of the duke of Burgundy had been comfortably provided for. An interesting question on the subject of episcopal elections was raised in the early part of 1248. The previous year the bishop of St. Asaph died, and the Chapter unanimously elected their dean in his place and sent representatives to Lyons to obtain the confirmation of the archbishop, who was then in the Curia. The pope, however, took the matter into his own hands, probably because the powers of confirming suffragans were given to the archbishop of Canterbury only when in England. He appointed the cardinal-bishop of Albano to examine and confirm the elect, if the examination was satisfactory. The cardinal, however, referred the matter again to Archbishop Boniface, before whom the proctor of the English king entered a pro 1 Additamenta, 149. 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 2 P. R. O. Papal Bulls, Bundle xx. No. 44. 3 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.' 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. |