Winchelsey, then, had not only been foiled, but the king had fully succeeded in breaking up his “confederacy.” Without severity or vengeance of any kind, Edward had fairly taken the two earls away from the primate; and was now at liberty to deal, at his leisure, with the chief conspirator.
It seems probable, too, from a circumstance which will presently appear, that the young earl of Hereford, on becoming the king’s son‐in‐law, had given Edward full explanations as to the past, and had placed in his hands written evidence against Winchelsey; for shortly after, we find the king resolving to take decisive measures against the archbishop. But with Edward all was orderly and legitimate. Winchelsey had no reason to fear the fate of Thomas à Becket, or of the archbishop whom Henry IV. sent to the scaffold. The king under whom he lived could resolutely withstand either a pope or a primate, when he felt his own cause to be a just one; but his respect for the church, and for the forms of law, was sincere and deeply‐rooted. He had the highest kind of complaint to prefer against this intriguing and turbulent prelate; but he resolved to lay it before the pope, and to send the cause to him for judgment. His ambassadors therefore placed the matter in the hands of the pontiff, who immediately cited the archbishop to Rome, to answer for his conduct. William Thorn, a monk of Canterbury, thus describes the next scene: “When the archbishop knew that he was thus cited, he went to the king to ask for permission to cross the sea. And when the king heard of his coming, he ordered the doors of his presence‐chamber to be thrown open, that all who wished might enter, and hear the words which he should address to him. And, having heard the archbishop, he thus replied to him: ‘The permission to cross the sea which you ask of us we willingly grant you; but permission to return grant we none; bearing in mind your treachery, and the treason which at our parliament at Lincoln you plotted against us; whereof a letter under your seal is witness, and plainly testifies against you.’ ‘We leave it to the pope to avenge our wrongs; and as you have deserved, so shall he recompense you. But from our favour and mercy, which you ask, we utterly exclude you; because merciless you have yourself been, and therefore deserve not to obtain mercy.’”
And so we part with Winchelsey, who disappears from this history; not returning to England until the weak and troubled reign of Edward II. gave him re‐entrance, and supplied him with new opportunities for treason and conspiracy; all his plans and objects having one end in view—the prostration of the royal authority at the feet of the pontifical. But, in taking leave of him we feel inclined to contrast, for a few moments, his character with that of another prelate to whom he was, in this parliament of Lincoln, especially opposed. It will be remembered, that one especial demand of the “confederacy” was, the dismissal and disgrace of the king’s treasurer; and the concession of the future appointments to that office, to the parliament. Now this treasurer, against whom the conspirators preferred such complaints, was Walter Langton, bishop of Chester. And the guiding spirit of the conspiracy was, as we have seen, Robert Winchelsey, archbishop of Canterbury. Let us, then, briefly sketch the history of these two men; one of whom was Edward’s principal domestic foe; the other, his most trusted servant and minister.
Robert Winchelsey, who came to the primacy in 1295, was as restless, arrogant, and intriguing an ecclesiastic as had filled the archiepiscopal chair since the days of Thomas à Becket. In fact, he seems to have been selected by the enterprising Boniface VIII. as a fit agent to carry on the work of Becket and Pandulph; but to do this with any hope of success under such a prince as Edward, it was necessary to affect the tone and language of Stephen Langton.
As an ecclesiastical superior, Winchelsey was arrogant and tyrannical. He had one long contest with the monks of St. Augustine’s in Canterbury; another with the earl of Lancaster; one year we find him excommunicating the constable of Dover Castle; the next, the bishop of London; the next, the prior and canons of Gloucester, and so on to the end of the story. But these were merely the amusements of his leisure hours. The grand business of his life, as of Becket’s, was to bring, if possible, the crown into subserviency to the papal tiara.
He had no sooner landed from Rome and taken possession of his see, than he convened, says Matthew of Westminster, some of his suffragans in the church of St. Paul, London, “for a special discussion on the liberties and customs of the church, reviving and re‐establishing certain constitutions which had been approved by the holy fathers, but which, by neglect, had fallen into disuse.” The real drift of all this “revival of certain liberties of the church” soon appeared. A very few months had elapsed before the king was compelled, by Philip’s seizure of Gascony, to call upon his subjects for aid; and at once the archbishop revealed his real purpose, by producing a papal mandate, which he, probably, had brought with him from Rome, forbidding the clergy any longer to grant “aids” to the king without the special permission of the pope.
This novel assumption, which at once made the pope, and not the king, the ruler over a large part of England, might have succeeded in either of the two preceding or in the succeeding reign; but in Edward the crafty churchman had met with more than his match. By making them practically feel the meaning of the word “outlawry” the king soon brought the clergy to a clearer understanding of their real position.
But, though defeated in his first attempt, Winchelsey was not discouraged. Unable alone to cope with the power of the crown, he immediately began to form “conspiracies” and “confederacies” with any whom he perceived to be discontented; and in this way, by fostering and encouraging the resistance of Norfolk and Hereford, he managed to keep the king in a state of conflict and discomfort from 1296 to 1301, and in this last year he had proceeded to the verge of a civil war. The king at last, irritated and seriously aggrieved, sent him to the pope for judgment, and so in effect cast him out of the realm; but the man, and his plans and purposes, remained unchanged. So soon as this great king, the only person who could control him, was gone, Winchelsey crept back again into England, and we soon find him, under the weak and incapable Edward II., leading the discontented barons, and again attempting to enact the part of Stephen Langton. Such was Winchelsey—a fit agent of the papal court, but to England a troubler and an intestine foe.
Contrast with him the man who, in confederacy with the discontented barons, he essayed, in 1301, to crush—Walter Langton, bishop of Chester, the king’s treasurer, and one of his most valued servants. Had we no further knowledge of this prelate than the fact, that the conspirators at Lincoln prayed the king
“Him to remove by common assent,”