Pandolf, whom the pope had chosen for his legate, and appointed to head this important expedition, had, before he left Rome, applied for a secret conference with his master, and had asked him, whether, if the king of England, in this desperate situation, were willing to submit to the apostolic see, the church should, without the consent of Philip, grant him any terms of accommodation.[*] Innocent, expecting from his agreement with a prince so abject both in character and fortune, more advantages than from his alliance with a great and victorious monarch, who, after such mighty acquisitions, might become too haughty to be bound by spiritual chains, explained to Pandolf the conditions on which he was willing to be reconciled to the king of England. The legate, therefore, as soon as he arrived in the north of France, sent over two knights templars to desire an interview with John at Dover, which was readily granted: he there represented to him in such strong, and probably in such true colors, his lost condition, the disaffection of his subjects, the secret combination of his vassals against him, the mighty armament of France, that John yielded at discretion,[**] and subscribed to all the conditions which Pandolf was pleased to impose upon him. He promised, among other articles, that he would submit himself entirely to the judgment of the pope; that he would acknowledge Langton for primate; that he would restore all the exiled clergy and laity who had been banished on account of the contest; that he would make them full restitution of their goods, and compensation for all damages, and instantly consign eight thousand pounds, in part of payment; and that every one outlawed or imprisoned for his adherence to the pope, should immediately be received into grace and favor.[***] Four barons swore, along with the king, to the observance of this ignominious treaty.[****]
[* M. Paris, p. 162.]
[** M. West. p. 271.]
[*** Rymer, vol. i. p. 166. M. Paris, p. 163.
Annal Burt. p. 288.]
[**** Rymer, vol. i p. 170. M. Paris, p. 163.]
But the ignominy of the king was not yet carried to its full height. Pandolf required him, as the first trial of obedience, to resign his kingdom to the church; and he persuaded him, that he could nowise so effectually disappoint the French invasion, as by thus putting himself under the immediate protection of the apostolic see. John, lying under the agonies of present terror, made no scruple of submitting to this condition He passed a charter, in which he said, that, not constrained by fear, but of his own free will, and by the common advice and consent of his barons, he had, for remission of hia own sins and those of his family, resigned England and Ireland to God, to St. Peter and St. Paul, and to Pope Innocent and his successors in the apostolic chair: he agreed to hold these dominions as feudatory of the church of Rome, by the annual payment of a thousand marks; seven hundred for England, three hundred for Ireland: and he stipulated, that, if he or his successors should ever presume to revoke or infringe this charter, they should instantly, except upon admonition they repented of their offence, forfeit all right to their dominions.[*]
[* Rymer, vol. i. p. 176. M. Paris, p. 165.]
In consequence of this agreement, John did homage to Pandolf as the pope’s legate, with all the submissive rites which the feudal law required of vassals before their liege lord and superior. He came disarmed into the legate’s presence, who was seated on a throne; he flung himself on his knees before him; he lifted up his joined hands, and put them within those of Pandolf; he swore fealty to the pope; and he paid part of the tribute which he owed for his kingdom as the patrimony of St. Peter. The legate, elated by this supreme triumph of sacerdotal power, could not forbear discovering extravagant symptoms of joy and exultation: he trampled on the money, which was laid at his feet as an earnest of the subjection of the kingdom; an insolence of which, however offensive to all the English, no one present, except the archbishop of Dublin, dared to take any notice. But though Pandolf had brought the king to submit to these base conditions, he still refused to free him from the excommunication and interdict, till an estimation should be taken of the losses of the ecclesiastics, and full compensation and restitution should be made them.
John, reduced to this abject situation under a foreign power, still showed the same disposition to tyrannize over his subjects, which had been the chief cause of all his misfortunes. One Peter of Pomfret, a hermit, had foretold that the king, this very year, should lose his crown; and for that rash prophecy, he had been thrown into prison in Corfe castle. Johfi now determined to bring him to punishment as an impostor; and though the man pleaded that his prophecy was fulfilled, and that the king had lost the royal and independent crown which he formerly wore, the defence was supposed to aggravate his guilt: he was dragged at horses’ tails to the town of Warham, and there hanged on a gibbet with his son.[*]
When Pandolf, after receiving the homage of John, returned to France, he congratulated Philip on the success of his pious enterprise; and informed him that John, moved by the terror of the French arms, had now come to a just sense of his guilt; had returned to obedience under the apostolic see; had even consented to do homage to the pope for his dominions; and having thus made his kingdom a part of St. Peter’s patrimony, had rendered it impossible for any Christian prince, without the most manifest and most flagrant impiety, to attack him.[**] Philip was enraged on receiving this intelligence: he exclaimed, that having, at the pope’s instigation, undertaken an expedition which had cost him above sixty thousand pounds sterling, he was frustrated of his purpose, at the time when its success was become infallible: he complained that all the expense had fallen upon him; all the advantages had accrued to Innocent: he threatened to be no longer the dupe of these hypocritical pretences: and assembling his vassals, he laid before them the ill treatment which he had received, exposed the interested and fraudulent conduct of the pope, and required their assistance to execute his enterprise against England, in which he told them, that notwithstanding the inhibitions and menaces of the legate, he was determined to persevere. The French barons were in that age little less ignorant and superstitious than the English: yet, so much does the influence of those religious principles depend on the present dispositions of men! they all vowed to follow their prince on his intended expedition, and were resolute not to be disappointed of that glory and those riches which they had long expected from this enterprise. The earl of Flanders alone, who had previously formed a secret treaty with John, declaring against the injustice and impiety of the undertaking, retired with his forces;[***] and Philip, that he might not leave so dangerous an enemy behind him, first turned his arms against the dominions of that prince.
[* M. Paris, p. 165. Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 56.]
[** Trivet, p. 160.]
[*** M. Paris, p. 166.]
Meanwhile the English fleet was assembled under the earl of Saltsbury, the king’s natural brother; and, though inferior in number, received orders to attack the French in their harbors. Salisbury performed this service with so much success that he took three hundred ships; destroyed a hundred more;[*] and Philip, finding it impossible to prevent the rest from falling into the hands of the enemy, set fire to them himself, and thereby rendered it impossible for him to proceed any farther in his enterprise.
John, exulting in his present security, insensible to his past disgrace, was so elated with this success, that he thought of no less than invading France in his turn, and recovering all those provinces which the prosperous arms of Philip had formerly ravished from him. He proposed this expedition to the barons, who were already assembled for the defence of the kingdom. But the English nobles both hated and despised their prince: they prognosticated no success to any enterprise conducted by a such a leader: and, pretending that their time of service was elapsed, and all their previsions exhausted, they refused to second his undertaking.[**] The king, however, resolute in his purpose, embarked with a few followers, and sailed to Jersey, in the foolish expectation that the barons would at last be ashamed to stay behind.[***] But finding himself disappointed, he returned to England; and raising some troops, threatened to take vengeance on all his nobles for their desertion and disobedience. The archbishop of Canterbury, who was in a confederacy with the barons here interposed; strictly inhibited the king from thinking of such an attempt; and threatened him with a renewal of the sentence of excommunication if he pretended to levy war upon any of his subjects before the kingdom were freed from the sentence of interdict.[****]