Futile attempts to check exactions. 1246.
Such a war did not tend to the popularity of the King. The exchequer had been empty, money was stringently and often illegally exacted. A new Pope, Innocent IV., was elected, and the exactions from the English clergy resumed more vigorously than ever: for the Pope was carrying on the contest he had inherited against Frederick II., and was now summoning at Lyons the council his predecessor had failed to collect, in hopes of destroying for ever the power of the Hohenstaufen. His agent, Master Martin, travelled through England, pillaging the clergy till the English could bear it no longer, and the barons joined with the Church in demanding his dismissal. The foreign element in the Church too continued its baneful activity. Boniface, the Archbishop, laid waste his rich see, cutting down the timber and sending the profits abroad, while the King attempted, though in vain, to secure the Bishopric of Chichester for Robert de Passelewe. The nation determined to demand its rights at the Council of Lyons. The English ambassadors there took an opportunity of charging the Pope with not being contented with his Peter’s Pence and the yearly 1000 marks which John had promised, with sending his messengers to make further exactions, and with filling English benefices against the will of their patrons with Italian priests. 60,000 marks a year thus passed into the hands of foreigners, ignorant of the language, and mostly living abroad. The Pope vouchsafed no answer, but shortly afterwards issued a Bull forbidding pluralities, and promising to respect the rights of patrons. The Bull remained a dead letter; and the very next year 6000 marks were exacted, and foreign priests were as plentiful as ever, admitted to their benefices under what was spoken of as “non obstante” clauses, which set aside all previous Bulls. The feeling in England against the Pope, who exacted, and the King, who allowed the exactions, grew more and more determined.
Inroad of Poitevin favourites. 1247.
Discontent of Barons.
Continued misgovernment.
Tallages on the cities.
Diversion of the crusade. 1250.
In 1247 matters grew still worse. A fresh swarm of foreigners arrived in England; De la Marche was dead, and the King’s half-brothers came over and were at once received with favour and honoured with profuse gifts. Chief among them was William of Valence, and his brother Aymer, who, in the year 1250, was made Bishop of Winchester, though he was never consecrated. The foreign policy of England was by these men managed for their own interests. Thus on the death of Raymond Berenger, Provence was allowed to pass into the hands of Charles of Anjou, who had married the Queen’s youngest sister; and thus Henry made use of a crusade, on which he said that he was going, to demand large sums of money from the people. In 1248 the crisis seemed approaching. At a meeting of Parliament many charges were raised against the favourites; and the feeling against the King’s personal government, which had long been growing, found vent. In blind security, Henry continued his course. The King’s revenue, squandered in empty magnificence or lavish grants to his foreign friends, became more and more dilapidated. Money had to be borrowed. All men with an income of £20 were compelled to take up their knighthood; and afraid to have recourse to illegal aids from the nobility, the King turned upon the cities, more especially London, and demanded and obtained great tallages from them. The crusade constantly supplied him with an excuse for these exactions; yet even when the King of France was taken prisoner in Egypt, Henry and his crusaders made no movement. He contented himself with appointing a day for his expedition; the expedition itself did not take place. Innocent indeed had other ends in view; he was bent far more on the destruction of the Hohenstaufen than on the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre. Frederick II. had died in December 1250, and the Pope’s energies were now directed to driving those who remained of this family from their kingdom of the two Sicilies.
Montfort’s government of Gascony.
His quarrel with the King.