CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE II. THE WORK OF GUALO THE LEGATE III. PANDULPH REPLACES GUALO AS LEGATE XII. THE FIRST YEARS OF POPE INNOCENT IV XIII. THE ENGLISH AT THE COUNCIL OF LYONS XIV. THE YEAR AFTER THE COUNCIL OF LYONS XV. HENRY III PREPARES FOR THE CRUSADE . XX. THE CHURCH AND THE PROVISIONS OF OXFORD INTRODUCTION ALMOST every historical inquiry is beset with difficulties. It might, perhaps, seem to the ordinary observer that it should be an easy matter, with the expenditure of just a little trouble and labour, directed with an honesty of purpose, to determine what are the undoubted facts in the story of the past, and to disentangle the certain from those elements of the uncertain with which most human relations are overlaid and embroidered. This, however, in practice is frequently, if not generally, found to be most difficult, and the reason is not far to seek. The human mind is so constituted that it intrudes itself and its own views into most considerations in such a way, that facts become distorted to accord with the individual method of regarding them. Many people come to history to find evidence for something they wish to prove, and their eyes consequently magnify what they expect to see, whilst, probably quite unconsciously, they obscure, or diminish, or discount what does not accord with their preconceived notions. If this be true in regard to facts, all the more certainly is it the case with respect to inferences or deductions which have to be drawn from them, in order to explain their existence or to point their moral. Everyone who has made the endeavour will recognise how difficult it is accurately to determine the sense of even one document, and what stern self-discipline is requisite as the first condition of every critical inquiry or historical in vestigation. In briefly introducing the present study of the relations between the Church and State in the reign of Henry III, it is perhaps well to make one or two remarks upon the way in which I would desire to approach the question. That attitude of mind, to which I have just referred, so detrimental to any fair examination of the facts, is confined to no party and, as far as I know, is induced by no special views on religious matters. As a rule it is obviously increased by direct controversy; as the immediate necessity of gaining a dialectic triumph over an adversary, of defending a chosen position or of pushing forward an advantage, is not conducive to the tone and temper of mind needful for the formation of a balanced judgement. My endeavour in this volume has been to state the facts as far as possible in the language of the old chroniclers and of the letters and other documents of the reign. On the one side and on the other, in regard to the relations between England and Rome in the thirteenth century, there has been, it seems to me, a tendency-I may call it, perhaps, a natural tendency-to minimise and exaggerate. Those holding one set of opinions have been, perhaps, too blind to the difficulties which undoubtedly did exist between England and Rome at this period, and which were certainly not light difficulties. Those holding other views have, it seems to me, been equally hasty in assuming that these difficulties were religious or spiritual difficulties. I make every excuse for the mistake-as I hold it to be-because to them the word Rome has become almost a symbol for a certain body of religious views and the expression for a system of religious teaching opposed in many things to that of mere |