The Pope made further encroachments on the liberties of the Church of England, by sending over a horde of Italians to fill vacant benefices. The nobles blazed out into open wrath “that the Pope, through avarice, should deprive them of their ancient right to the patronage of livings!” They were headed, as usual, by the King’s brother, Richard Earl of Cornwall, who seems to have been not a true, living Christian (as there is reason to believe his son was), but simply a political opponent of the aggressions of Rome. The citizens of London were about equally disgusted with the King, who at this time received a visit from the Queen’s uncle, Tomaso of Savoy, and in his delight, His Majesty commanded his loyal and grumbling subjects to remove all dirt from the streets, and to meet the Count in gala clothing, and with horses handsomely accoutred.
The hint thrown out by Levina had not been lost on the Countess. She thought a complete change might do good to the fading flower which was only too patently withering on its stem: and at her instance the whole household removed to Westminster at the beginning of this winter. They had hardly settled down in their new abode when a fresh storm broke on the now aged head of Earl Hubert.
Once more, all the old, worn-out charges were trumped up, including even that by which the Princess Margaret’s name had been so cruelly aspersed. A flash of the early fire of the old man blazed forth when the accusation was made.
“I was never a traitor to you, nor to your father!” said Hubert de Burgh, facing his ungrateful King and pupil of long ago: “If I had been, under God, you would never have been here!”
It was true, and Henry knew it, best of all men.
The King, in the fulness of his compassionate grace, was pleased to let the Earl off very lightly. The sentence passed was, that he should only resign the four most valuable castles that he had. This, of course, was not because Hubert was guilty, but because His Majesty was covetous. Chateau Blanc, Grosmond, Skenefrith, and Hatfield, were given up to the Crown. Hubert bore it, we are told, very quietly and patiently. His own time could not be long now, for he was at least seventy; and the Benjamin of his love was dying of a broken heart.
King Henry himself was not without sorrow, for about All Saints’ Day, Guglielmo of Savoy, the beloved uncle who had moulded him like wax, died rather suddenly at Viterbo. So grieved was the King, that he tore his royal mantle from his shoulders, and flung it into the fire. With that sudden and passionate reaction to the other side, often seen in weak natures, he now threw himself into the arms of the Predicants and Minorites—until he set up a new favourite, who was not long in appearing.
Before the winter was over, a second sorrow fell upon Richard de Clare, in the death of his mother, Isabel, wife of the King’s brother. Cornwall grieved bitterly both for the loss of his wife and for the miserable state into which England was sinking; and declaring that he loved his country so much, that he could not bear to stay and see it go to ruin, he prepared to head a fresh crusade. Perhaps it did not occur to him that love and patriotism would have been shown better by staying at home and trying to keep his country from going to ruin. That was reserved for another Richard—the young Earl of Gloucester.
Another comet, and a violent hurricane, in the spring, made the augurs shake their heads and prophesy worse calamities than ever. There was a fresh one on the way, in the shape of a Papal exaction of one-fifth of the property of foreign beneficed clerks in England, in order to support the war then waged by the Pope on the Emperor of Germany. The royal Council was stirred, and told its listless master that he “ought not to suffer England to become a spoil and a desolation to immigrants, like a vineyard without a wall, exposed to wild beasts.” His Majesty, like a true son of holy Church, replied that he “neither wished nor dared to oppose the Pope in any thing.” As if to make confusion worse confounded, the Archbishop of Canterbury (subsequently known as Saint Edmund of Pontigny) aspired to become a second Becket, and appealed to the Pope to do away with state patronage, which he of course considered ought to be vested in the Primate. King Henry, supine as he was, was roused at last, and sent a message to Rome to the effect that the appeal of the Archbishop was contrary to his royal dignity. The Pope declined to entertain the appeal: and the King, we are told (by a monk) “became more tyrannical than ever,” and appointed Bonifacio of Savoy to the See of Winchester. The defeated Archbishop submitted to the Pope’s demand of a fifth of his income: but when the Pope, emboldened by success, came, to an agreement with the Italian priests occupying English benefices, that on condition of their helping him against the Emperor, all benefices in his gift should be bestowed upon Italians, the Archbishop could bear no longer, and he left England, never to return. He died at Pontigny, his birthplace, on the sixteenth of November following; and not long afterwards, King Henry reverently knelt to worship at the tomb of the saint (Note 1) who had been a thorn in his side as long as he lived.
Then the English Abbots, cruelly mulcted by the Pope, appealed to their natural Sovereign, to be met by a scowl, and to hear the Legate told that he might choose the best of the royal castles wherein to imprison them. Twenty-four Roman priests came over to fill English benefices: and at last, when the Legate left England (for which “no one was sorry but the King”), it was calculated that with the exception of church plate, he carried out of England more wealth than he left in it.