nd lingered for
months along the southern shore, waiting for news of the aid he had
solicited from Rome and from the Continent. It was not without definite
purpose that he had become the vassal of the Papacy. While Innocent was
dreaming of a vast Christian Empire with the Pope at its head to enforce
justice and religion on his under-kings, John believed that the Papal
protection would enable him to rule as tyrannically as he would. The
thunders of the Papacy were to be ever at hand for his protection, as the
armies of England are at hand to protect the vileness and oppression of a
Turkish Sultan or a Nizam of Hyderabad. His envoys were already at Rome,
pleading for a condemnation of the Charter. The after action of the
Papacy shows that Innocent was moved by no hostility to English freedom.
But he was indignant that a matter which might have been brought before
his court of appeal as overlord should have been dealt with by armed
revolt, and in this crisis both his imperious pride and the legal
tendency of his mind swayed him to the side of the king who submitted to
his justice. He annulled the Great Charter by a bull in August, and at
the close of the year excommunicated the barons.

[Sidenote: Landing of Lewis]

His suspension of Stephen Langton from the exercise of his office as
Primate was a more fatal blow. Langton hurried to Rome, and his absence
left the barons without a head at a moment when the very success of their
efforts was dividing them. Their forces were already disorganized when
autumn brought a host of foreign soldiers from over sea to the king's
standard. After starving Rochester into submission John found himself
strong enough to march ravaging through the Midland and Northern
counties, while his mercenaries spread like locusts over the whole face
of the land. From Berwick the king turned back triumphant to coop up his
enemies in London while fresh Papal excommunications fell on the barons
and the city. But the burghers set Innocent at defiance. "The ordering of
secular matters appertaineth not to the Pope," they said, in words that
seem like mutterings of the coming Lollardism; and at the advice of Simon
Langton, the Archbishop's brother, bells swung out and mass was
celebrated as before. Success however was impossible for the
undisciplined militia of the country and the towns against the trained
forces of the king, and despair drove the barons to listen to Fitz-Walter
and the French party in their r