to embark, and he was there joined by the barons of Henry III. England and Ireland, and by the princes of Wales. A.D. 1229. But, either by accident or design, when all were ready to embark, it was found there was not enough Expedishipping to convey one half of the army, and the ex- poned by pedition was obliged to be given up. This greatly want of vexed Henry, who blamed De Burgh as being the cause of this failure. and sea, upon tion post shipping. goes to France, but soon In the next year, the clergy" gave the King a A.D. 1230. great sum of money for recovering his rights which Henry were taken from his father beyond the the same account the citizens were put to a grievous returns ransom, and the Jews forced to pay a third of their substance." 14 In April, Henry sailed for France; profit. but after a few months of inglorious warfare, he returned to England. without glory or A.D. 1232. The barons being asked for money, tell the King to get it from Hubert de Burgh. Disgrace of De Burgh, the King's Marriage, History of new Favourites, and Opposition of the Barons. Henry soon wanted more money, and in 1232 he demanded an aid to resist the inroads of the Welch. The storm of anger which had been brewing for several years now burst on Hubert's head. The barons accused him of avarice, and of mismanaging the King's property for his own benefit; and they said that if the King wanted money, he could get it from Hubert, and his relations. Henry acted on this suggestion, and called on Hubert to give an account of all the wardships he had held; of the rents of the royal demesnes he had received; and of all the aids and fines which had been paid into the exchequer. Hubert Hubert was granted a few months' delay to prepare his disgraced. answer, and in the meantime, he escaped for safety to the Priory of Merton. Before the expiration of the Takes refuge in a church. Henry III. time allowed him, he went to Bury St. Edmunds, to A.D. 1232. visit his wife. When the King heard of this, supposing that Hubert designed to escape altogether, he sent down a body of arined men to take him prisoner. On hearing of their approach, he took refuge in a church, where he awaited them, with the cross in one hand, and the host, taken from the altar, in the other. Is dragged The. sanctity of the place was not respected, and he was dragged from the altar, bound on the back of a horse, and taken to the Tower of London. The Bishop of London was much incensed at this sacrilege, and, but is tak- on his remonstrance, the King ordered Hubert to be from the altar, en back. The church is watched. Hubert restored to the church; but he also directed that the church should be surrounded, so that Hubert could neither escape nor receive food. He therefore soon gave himself up to the King, and was again taken to surrenders. the Tower. The King now discovered that Hubert had much treasure lodged with the Knights Templars in London, and accordingly, he demanded that it should be given up to him. Hubert, of course, could not refuse, and the receipt of the money seems to have softened the King's heart; for soon afterwards he regranted him all the lands which his father had given him, and also those he had purchased. Nevertheless, he sent him prisoner to the castle of Devizes.15 Peter des restored to Peter des Roches had returned from the Holy Land some time before the fall of Hubert, and had been received by the King with great marks of affection. He had been the tutor of his youth, and probably the King had really a personal regard for him. On the fall of Hubert, therefore, Henry restored Peter to his confidence. The restored favourite now foreigners persuaded the King to dismiss the English from their custody of the royal castles, from the administration The dismissed power, promoted. of justice, and from the great offices of state, and to Henry III. place his foreign countrymen in their stead. A.D. 1233. The son of Pembroke barons' op the Earl of heads the The barons, acting under the advice of Richard Earl Mareschal, son of the great Earl of Pembroke, remonstrated boldly, refused to attend the King's summons to Parliament, and declared, "That unless the position Bishop of Winchester and the Poitevins were forthwith removed from his court, they would, by the Common Council of the kingdom, force both him and those evil counsellors out of the kingdom, and would consult about creating a new king." 16 The King and the Bishop of Winchester would not listen to reason, but, on the contrary, insulted the barons. again Then ensued a series of contests between the King and the barons; faithless promises on the part of the King; Hubert de Burgh escaping from prison and joining the insurgents, the clergy uniting with the barons in their resistance to the King's tyranny, and excommunicating the King's friends, including A.D. 1234. even the Bishop of Winchester. At length the King The King was obliged to yield. He dismissed Peter the Poitevin yields. back to his bishopric of Winchester, 17 and treated his former favourites with great, but probably well-deserved, severity; and received back into his favour Hugh de Burgh, and some of the principal insurgents. Thus did the fickle Henry yield to every storm, and trim his sails to every wind; well satisfied if only he could reach his desired haven, the money-bags of his subjects. To narrate in detail the history of these conflicts would be tedious and uninteresting; but in themselves they are important, as they were the clear, though unheeded, forerunners of the slowly approaching day of retribution. Henry III. marries, and at once begins . again his foreign favourit ism. On the 14th day of January, 1236, the King marA.D. 1236. ried Eleanor, daughter of Raymond Count of ProThe King vence, and the marriage was celebrated with great pomp. But, alas! the King immediately forgot the severe lessons he had received in the matter of favouritism and foreigners, and made the Queen's uncles his chief favourites and advisers, and received back to his favour those whom, to appease the barons, he himself had branded as traitors.18 Of course the barons were outraged by such conduct, and having discovered the power they possessed over the King by means of holding his purse-strings, they took the first opportunity of exercising it. The opportunity soon came. A.D. 1237. The Christmas following, he summoned his Council to meet him, and endeavoured by fair promises to persuade them to grant him an aid. They refused compliance, till he added three barons of their own party The King to his Council, and then only on the condition, "That from thenceforward the King should reject the counsels and advices of foreigners and strangers, and adhere to those of his faithful and natural subjects; and that the money collected should be secured in some abbey, church, or castle, that so, if the King should recede from his promise, it should be restored to every man again." 19 The barons resist. again yields. The history of the next few years, is simply a history of the King's fickleness and faithlessness, of his subserviency to the Pope, and of the bold opposition of the clergy to the Pope's extortions. A few instances must be narrated. Hubert de Burgh, who had been reinstated in the King's favour, got into disgrace in 1237, by marrying his daughter, without the King's consent, to his ward, the Earl of Gloucester; but he regained the King's favour by paying him King's a large sum of money. Two years afterwards the Henry III. King accused De Burgh of high treason; but De A.D. 1237. Burgh made his peace this time by giving up to The him four of his best castles. In 1237, the King fickleness; again sent for the Pope's legate, under pretence of obtaining his assistance in "reforming the state," but in reality to support him against the barons. Two years afterwards the Pope recalled his legate; but the King, fearing the barons would take advan- his feebletage of his departure, obtained permission for him to remain. The aid which had been granted was collected; but notwithstanding all the caution of the Parliament, the King got possession of it, and squan- his faithdered it among his foreign friends. It is wearisome to recount all these petty squabbles; but, as I have before said, they are of importance as precursors of the coming storm. The Pope's Oppression of the English Clergy. I must now turn to matters of more enduring interest; and I shall therefore endeavour to explain to you the nature and origin of the Pope's demands on the Church, and of the spirited resistance made to them by the Roman Catholic clergy of England. ness; lessness. clergy to the Pope. From the earliest times, the clergy had formed a The relabody linked together from the lowest priest to the tions of the Bishop of Rome, and, when the feudal system was established, "the constitution of the Church became in a great measure assimilated, in the ideas of the Western Christians, to the institutions of a feudal kingdom. The Pope appeared to hold the place of the sovereign: the Bishops were considered nearly in the light of his barons; and subordinate to the |