receive the new elected primate, and to restore the monks to their convent, from whence they had been expelled. But these entreaties served only to enflame his resentment. He broke out into the most violent invectives; and swore by God's teeth; his usual oath, that if the kingdom was put under an interdict, he would banish the whole body of the clergy, and confiscate their possessions. This idle threat only served to hasten the resentment of the pontiff. Perceiving the king's weakness, and how little he was loved by his subjects, he issued at last the sentence of the interdict, which was so much dreaded by the whole nation. This instrument of terror in the hands of the see of Rome, was calculat ed to strike the senses in the highest degree, and to operate upon the superstitious minds of the people. By it a stop was immediately put to divine service, and to the administration of all the sacraments but baptism. The church doors were shut, the statues of the saints were laid on the ground. The dead were refused christian burial, and were thrown into ditches and on the high-ways, without the usual rites, or any funeral solemnity. Marriage was celebrated in the church-yards, and the people probited the use of meat, as in times of public penance. They were debarred from all pleasure; they were prohibited from shaving their beards, from saluting each other, and giving any attention to their apparel. Every circumstance seemed calculated to inspire religious terror and testified the apprehensions of divine vengeance and indignation. Against such a calamity, increased by the deplorable lamentations of the clergy, it was in vain that John exerted all his authority, threatened and punished, and opposed the terrors of his temporal power to their ecclesiastical censures. It was in vain that he banished some and confined others; in was in vain that he treated the adherents of Langton with ri

gour, and ordered all the concubines of the clergy to be imprisoned. The church conquered by perseverance; and John saw himself every day growing more obnoxious and more contemptible. The barons, many of whose families he had dishonoured by his licentious amours, were almost to a man his declared enemies. The clergy represented him in the most odious light to the people; and nothing remained to him but the feeble relics of that power, which had been so strongly fixed by his grandfather, that all his vices were hitherto unable totally to overthrow.

In the mean time, the pope seeing all the consequences he expected attending the interdict, and that the king was thus rendered perfectly disagreeable to his subjects, resolved to second the blow; and while the people were yet impressed with terror, determined to take advantage of their consternation. The church of Rome had artificially contrived a gradation of sentences; by which, while she inflicted one punishment, she taught the sufferers to expect more formidable consequences from that which was to ensue. On the back of the interdict therefore, came the sentence of excommunication, by which John was at once rendered impious, and unfit for human society. No sooner was this terrible sentence denounced against him, than his subjects began to think of opposing his authority. The clergy were the first to set an example of disobedience. Geoffry, archdeacon of Norwich, who was entrusted with a considerable office in the court of Exchequer, resigned his employment, which so exasperated the king that he had him confined; and ordering his head to be covered with a great leaden cope, thus kept him in torment till he died. Most of the other bishops dreading his fate, left the kingdom. Many of the nobility also, terrified at

A. D.

1209.

the king's tyranny, went into voluntary exile, and those who remained, only employed their time in cementing a confederacy against him. The next gradation of papal indignation was to absolve John's subjects from their oaths of fidelity and allegiance; aud to declare every one excommunicated who had any commerce with him in public or private; at his table, at his council, or even in private conversation. John, however, still continued refractory; and only one step more remained for the pope to take, and this was to give away the kingdom to another.

No situation could be more deplorable than that of John upon this occasion. Furious at his indignities, jealous of his subjects, and apprehending an enemy in every face, it is said, that fearing a conspiracy against his life, he shut himself up a whole night in the castle of Nottingham, and suffered none to approach his person. Being informed that the king of Wales had taken part against him, he ordered all the welsh hostages to be instantly put to death. Being apprehensive of the fidelity of his barons, he required their sons and daughters as hostages for their obedience. When his officers repaired on this odious duty to the castle of William Brause, a noblean of great note, the baron's wife rèsolutely told them, that she would never trust her children in the hands of a man, who had so barbarously murdered his own nephew. John was so provoked at this merited reproach, that he sent a body of forces to seize the person of Brause, who fled into Ireland with his wife and family. But John's indignation pursued him there; and discovering the unhappy family in their retreat, het seized the wife and son whom he starved to death in prison, while the unfortunate father narrowly escaped by flying into France.

Mean while the pope, who had resolved on giving the kingdom to another, was employed in fixing upon a person, who was willing to accept the donation, and had power to vindicate his claim. Philip, the king of France, seemed of all others the fittest for such an undertaking; he was politic and powerful, he had already spoiled John of his continental dominions, and was the most likely person to deprive him of the remainder. To him, therefore, the pope made a tender of the kingdom of England; and Philip very ardently embraced the offer. To strengthen the hands of Philip still more, the pope published a crusade against the deposed monarch all over Europe; exhorting the nobility, the knights, and men of every condition, to take up arms against the persecutor of the church, and to enlist under the French banner. Philip was not less active on his part: he levied a great army, and summoning all the vassals of the crown to attend: him at Rouen, he collected a fleet of seventeen hundred vessels in the sea ports of Normandy and Picardy, already devouring in imagination the kingdom he was appointed to possess.

A. D.

1213.

John, who, unsettled and apprehensive, scarcely knew where to turn, was still able to make an expiring effort to receive the enemy. All hated as he was, the natural enmity between the French and the English, the name of king which he still retained, and some remaining power, put him at the head of sixty thousand men, a sufficient number indeed, but not to be relied on, and with these he advanced to Dover. Europe now regarded the important preparations on both sides with impatience; and the decisive blow was soon expected, in which the church was to triumph, or to be overthrown. But neither Philip nor John had ability equal to the pontiff, by whom they were actuated; he appeared

on this accasion too refined a politician for either. He only intended to make use of Philip's power to intimidate his refractory son, not to destroy him. He expected more advantages from his agreement with a prince, so abject both in character and fortune, that from his alliance with a great and victorious monarch; who having nothing else left to conquer, might convert his power against his benefactor. He, therefore, secretly commissioned Pandolf his legate, to admit of John's submission, in case it should be offered, and he dictated the terms which would be proper for him to impose. In consequence of this, the legate passed through France, where he beheld Philip's great armament ready to set sail, and highly commended that monarch's zeal and expedi tion. From thence he went in person; or as some say, sent over an envoy to Dover, under pretence of negociating with the barons, and had a conference with John upon his arrival. He there represented to this forlorn prince, the numbers of the enemy, the hatred of his own subjects, and the secret confederacy there was in England against him. He intimated, that there was but one way to secure himself under the pope's protection, who was a merci. ful father, and still willing to receive a repentant sinner to his bosom John was too much intimidated, by the manifest danger of his situation, not to embrace every means offered for his safety. He assented to the truth of the legate's remonstrances, and took an oath to perform whatever stipulations the pope should impose. Having thus sworn to the performance of an unknown command, the artful Italian so well managed the barons, and so effectually intimidated the king, that he persuaded him to take the most extraordinary oath in all the records of history, before all the people, kneeling upon his knees, and with his hands held up between those of the legate.