Conduct of
Innocent III.

Consecration
of Stephen
Langton, 1207.

We can hardly doubt that, if John had had an adviser like Hubert, he might have tided over the difficulty, but now he plunged deeper and deeper, and at last lost his footing altogether. The Pope let the appeals drag on their weary length. He suffered all the contending bodies to spend their strength and their money, and to involve and compromise themselves as much as they chose. Then after a year and a half he decided the cause. The bishops, he said, had no standing-ground; the canonical electors were the monks of the chapter. The sub-prior Reginald was rejected because he had not been canonically chosen; John de Gray was rejected because he had been elected whilst an appeal was pending. The course was, therefore, clear. The monks were the electors; their proctors, now at the Court of Rome, had full power from them to elect, and the king had promised to confirm their choice, having secretly agreed with them to elect only John de Gray; for thus he had tried to impose on the Pope, sending at the same time large sums of money to clear the eyes of the Pope’s advisers. Innocent III., however, was very wide-awake, and John’s insincerity had put his game in his own hands. It was of no use, he said, to waste time. If they all went back to England they would have to come to Rome again for the confirmation of the election and the gift of the pall. They all had full powers—why should it not be done pleasantly and on the spot? He had a man fit for the place—an Englishman, the first scholar of the day, a cardinal, in whose favor John had more than once written to him on other occasions; let them elect him, he would confirm and consecrate him, and then all would be done. Whether Innocent really expected that John would submit to this we cannot say; probably not. But he did it. Only one of the monks objected, and reminded his brethren of their obligation to the king; the rest, relying on their powers from the king and convent, and overawed by the dignity and urgency of Innocent, elected Langton. Innocent immediately wrote to John to report the decision and ask him to receive Langton as archbishop. John was furious—refused, threatened, and blustered. The Pope, in reply, declared that he had done no more than was his duty to the widowed Church, and, in June 1207, consecrated the archbishop.

The Interdict,
1208.

John was obdurate: proposal after proposal was made, offer after offer; letter followed letter, embassy followed embassy. John seized the possessions of the convent of Christ Church and threatened to wreak vengeance on the monks. Then the Pope answered threat with threat: if John did not receive the archbishop the kingdom must be laid under interdict. It would then be unlawful to perform the services of the Church, the dead would be unburied, the sacraments would cease to be administered, or would be celebrated only in private; the people would be forced by the want of spiritual necessaries to compel the king to compliance. Still he held out, and in March 1208 the interdict was proclaimed. He then declared that he would be avenged on the bishops; many of them fled, and he seized their lands. Again, after a while, negotiations were resumed. Langton came to Dover to meet the king, but John would not face him. The Pope threatened personal excommunication; if that were not effective, it should be followed by a Bull of deposition and the absolution of the English from their obedience. If that were done, the execution of the sentence would be committed to one who would be only too glad to add England to his dominions, and to gratify the hatred that he had nursed for so many years, even to Philip of France, the conqueror of Normandy and Anjou.

John’s obduracy.

For a long time John showed himself impenetrable. He was quite content that his people should be deprived of the sacraments, that the clergy should be exiled, that the whole administration of the country should be paralyzed, almost as it had been in the days of Stephen. Even the terrors of personal excommunication had been too lavishly used of late to make much impression, for Philip had thriven under the anger of Innocent, and John had at this very moment his nephew, the Emperor Otho, a partner in the tribulation. The threat of deposition might be a mere threat; it would be very strange if the Pope should prefer the King of France to the King of England; and, if he did, John had a great army and fleet and treasure.

Persistence
of Innocent.

Panic of
John.

But if he thought that Innocent III., would be swayed either by the ordinary motives of Popes or by the ordinary aims of policy, he was much mistaken. That great Pope had set before himself a grand purpose of righteousness as it appeared to him; he was ready to set up the Hohenstaufen again and to depress the Welf, and to set Philip, the ally of the Hohenstaufen, and the husband of Ingeburga, above the other kings of the West, if he could gain his object. Innocent persisted. His legates openly warned John what the result would be if the sentence of deposition were to issue; and their words came true. John found or fancied himself involved in a web of conspiracy; warnings reached him from Wales and Scotland that his enemies were intriguing all around him, that he and his children would be put out of the throne and a new race of kings brought in. Then arose Peter of Wakefield and prophesied that on the next Ascension day John should be a king no more. Then came the news that Philip was equipping his fleet. So the man whom neither spiritual nor temporal weapons could bring to submission, moved by the prophecy of an impostor, lowered his flag and made the most abject submission that any king of the English has ever made.