. The blue color of the sapphire represented
faith; the verdure of the emerald, hope; the redness of the ruby,
charity; and the splendor of the topaz, good works.[*] By these
conceits, Innocent endeavored to repay John for one of the most
important prerogatives of his crown, which he had ravished from him;
conceits probably admired by Innocent himself. For it is easily possible
for a man, especially in a barbarous age, to unite strong talents for
business with an absurd taste for literature and the arts.

John was inflamed with the utmost rage when he heard of this attempt
of the court of Rome;[**] and he immediately vented his passion on the
monks of Christ-church, whom he found inclined to support the election
made by their fellows at Rome.

[* Rymer, vol. i. p. 139. M. Paris, p. 155]

[** Rymer, vol. i. p. 143.]

He sent Fulk de Cantelupe, and Henry de Cornhulle, two knights of his
retinue, men of violent tempers and rude manners, to expel them the
convent, and take possession of their revenues. These knights entered
the monastery with drawn swords, commanded the prior and the monks to
depart the kingdom, and menaced them, that in case of disobedience
they would instantly burn them with the convent.[*] Innocent,
prognosticating, from the violence and imprudence of these measures,
that John would finally sink in the contest, persevered the more
vigorously in his pretensions, and exhorted the king not to oppose God
and the church any longer, nor to persecute that cause for which the
holy martyr St. Thomas had sacrificed his life, and which had exalted
him equal to the highest saints in heaven;[**] a clear hint to John to
profit by the example of his father, and to remember the prejudices and
established principles of his subjects, who bore a profound veneration
to that martyr, and regarded his merits as the subject of their chief
glory and exultation.

Innocent, finding that John was not sufficiently tamed to submission,
sent three prelates, the bishops of London, Ely, and Worcester, to
intimate, that, if he persevered in his disobedience, the sovereign
pontiff would be obliged to lay the kingdom under an interdict.[***]
All the other prelates threw themselves on their knees before him, and
entreated him, with tears in their eyes, to prevent the scandal of this
sentence, by making a speedy submission to his spiritual father, by
receiving from his hands the new elected primate, and by restoring the
monks