upon it as a ready expedient to bring to an end a very undesirable state of things in the kingdom. To John the humiliation of surrender to the legate brought relief from the deposition, at the hands of the French king, which threatened him. This gain was the main point, and it is hardly likely that he was either serious in his promises, or had any intention of binding himself to the conditions of his absolution if it should suit his purposes to cast them aside. To the clergy and barons also the king's action brought relief from the pressure of the papal interdict, which now for a long period had seriously affected all classes of society, and the punitive effect of which was felt in every parish and every home throughout the country. They were not likely to inquire too minutely into the meaning of any act of homage on the part of their sovereign, which restored the ordinary practices of religion and the rights of a Christian country to England. Whatever the king may have intended, however, and whatever his subjects may have thought, by John's act of homage a new position was created for the English king, which was well recognised in those days of feudalism. Of this position the king was not slow to avail himself when he needed the help, which, as vassal of the pope, he could now demand from his overlord to enable him to cope with his old opponents, the barons.

The submission made by the king in May, 1213, was renewed on 3rd October of the same year, under more solemn circumstances. John again formally proclaimed the resignation of his kingdom to Pope Innocent, and recorded his oath of fealty to the Holy See, in a Charter sealed with a golden "bulla." This document was attested by Archbishop Langton, now in England, by four other bishops and several of the chief nobles.' It is this deed of gift which the

1 Rymer, i. 115. It was apparently at this same time that Archbishop

pope recites in his subsequent letter of acceptance, dated 2nd November, and which is countersigned by all the Cardinals in Curia.' After pointing out that those "kings alone have a right to reign who strive to serve God aright," Innocent III goes on to speak of John's submission. By God's inspiration, "in whose hands are the hearts of kings and who directs them wheresoever He wills," he says, "you the English king have elected to submit yourself and your realm, even in things temporal to me, to whom previously you had acknowledged yourself subject in spiritual matters. In this way in the one person of the Vicar of Christ the body and soul, as it were, that is, the temporal kingdom and the priesthood2 are united to the great benefit and increased power of both. He, therefore, who is the Alpha and Omega, has deigned to accomplish this. He has finished what He began, and so brought what He had begun to its ending, in such a way that the country, which of old acknowledged the Holy Roman Church as the ruler in spiritual matters, should now have it as its real master even in temporals." For by the common consent of the English barons, the king has given over for ever the kingdoms of England and Ireland to God, to His holy Apostles Peter and Paul, to the Holy Roman Church, and to the pope and his successors as a right and possession." Then after quoting textually John's Charter and oath of fealty, the pope declares them to be approved and ratified, and adds: We take

Langton, at the meeting of bishops and nobles in St. Paul's, produced a Charter of Henry I renewing the "laws of St. Edward," and obtained King John's assent to the same, and his pledge to keep it. The French historian, M. A. Luchaire, sees in the act of the archbishop and barons in thus founding their claims for right government upon previous grants, "the beginning of that constitutional rule which in the modern world has become the political law of civilised nations " (E. Lavisse, Histoire de France, iii. 201).

1 Rymer, i. 117.

3 In jus et proprietatem.

2 Regnum et sacerdotium.

"under the protection of St. Peter and Ours your person and the persons of your heirs together with your kingdoms and all that pertains to them." Finally he declares that, by the consent of the Cardinals, he bestows upon the king the kingdoms of England and Ireland, to be held henceforth as a fief "according to the prescribed form," and directs that his heirs, on succeeding to the crown, shall publicly acknowledge themselves to be vassals of the pope and take an oath of fealty to him.'

The peace between King John and his subjects, which followed upon his submission to Rome, was not of long duration. Difficulties soon began again to arise between the bishops and the Crown as to certain ecclesiastical appointments. The tension almost reaching the snapping-point, Archbishop Langton summoned his suffragans, the abbots, and other prelates of the province of Canterbury, to meet him at Dunstable in the early part of January, 1214. Their grievances were found to have a deeper foundation than a natural irritation caused by any royal whim. The council complained that the Apostolic legate, Nicholas, bishop of Tusculum, had in several instances set aside the rights of canonical election, and had appointed prelates to vacant churches at the king's wish, whom they considered not fitted to such positions. At the request of the assembly Langton sent a formal prohibition to the papal legate, forbidding him henceforth to act in this way against the rights of the Church of England. The legate Nicholas did not reply to this remonstrance, but at once sent off his associate Pandulph to Rome, to give his version of facts likely to come ultimately to the knowledge of the Curia. Pandulph faith

1 Wilkins, Concilia, i. 544. For some reason this same letter was again issued in the following February (Rymer, i. 119).

2 Minus sufficiens.

fully carried out his mission, and his representations were undoubtedly prejudicial to the position and authority of Cardinal Langton at the Roman court. The legate's envoy took with him from England to Pope Innocent the final Charter of King John's submission, sealed with its golden "bulla," and he so extolled the king and his virtues to the Roman officials, that the representations of Simon Langton, the archbishop's brother, on the merits of the case, fell upon deaf ears. In reality, however, the king's Charter and the pope's confirmation of it, assured that freedom of election for ecclesiastics for which the archbishop and his suffragans had contended.

Meantime Langton's determination to force the king to govern his people justly and honestly, was apparently altogether misconstrued by Innocent III and his advisers. As a result of this unfortunate misunderstanding of the real situation in England, and of the true character of King John, the pope in March, 1215, addressed a letter of reproof to the archbishop and his suffragans. "We are astonished," he writes, "and are deeply moved! We regard it as a very grave matter, and one most hurtful, that after peace had been happily restored, to the honour of God and His Church, between you and our beloved son in Christ, John, the illustrious king of England, you should have so far disregarded the settlement, as to aid in the dissensions between him and some of the barons and their accomplices. You have pretended not to recognise their existence, and have not interposed your authority to repress the discord. You cannot be ignorant of what will take place if these dissensions be not allayed by prudent counsel and unremitting care. From them there may easily happen some great scandal to the whole kingdom, which will not be ended 1 Matth. Paris, Chron. Maj., ii. 572.

without the expenditure of much money and without great labour. Some even expect and say, that in the dispute with the king, you have given both help and countenance (to his opponents), since these matters were never raised in the reigns of the king's father or brother, nor in his own, indeed, until peace between him and you had been made."

"We altogether condemn this attitude, if, as is asserted by many, conspiracies and plots are being made against him, or the people irreverently and undutifully are presuming to demand by force, what they should have asked for with humility and submission, if, indeed, there were any occasion at all to request anything." The pope then orders the English bishops to try and end, if necessary even by means of the spiritual sword of excommunication, all these discords. They are to warn the nobles that they must be reconciled with the king and serve him as faithfully as their ancestors had served his predecessors. On his part, the pope says, he has asked and begged the king to listen to any just demands that may be made to him, and to remedy any real grievance.1

On the same day Pope Innocent III addressed a letter to the barons couched in almost the same terms. This was followed a few days later by a brief epistle likewise directed to the barons, in which he wrote that the king had complained to him that his nobles would not pay the accustomed scutage which he had great need of in order to pay his army. The pope expressed the hope that they would not prevent, by their refusal, this pious intentionpium propositum-of the king to pay his debts; and he "commanded them by his apostolic letters" not to persist in their refusal to satisfy their king in this matter.2

Innocent III was evidently quite misinformed as to