of Christ-church to all their rights and possessions. He burst out
into the most indecent invectives against the prelates; swore by God's
teeth, his usual oath, that, if the pope presumed to lay his kingdom
under an interdict, he would send to him all the bishops and clergy of
England, and would confiscate all their estates; and threatened that,
if thenceforth he caught any Romans in his dominions, he would put out
their eyes, and cut off their noses, in order to set a mark upon them,
which might distinguish them from all other nations.[****]

[* M. Paris, p. 156. Trivet, p. 151. Ann. Waverl.
p. 169.]

[** M. Paris, p. 157.]

[*** M. Paris, p. 157.]

[**** M. Paris, p. 157.]

Amidst all this idle violence, John stood on such bad terms with his
nobility, that he never dared to assemble the states of the kingdom,
who, in so, just a cause, would probably have adhered to any other
monarch, and have defended with vigor the liberties of the nation
against these palpable usurpations of the court of Rome. Innocent,
therefore, perceiving the king's weakness, fulminated at last the
sentence of interdict which he had for some time held suspended over
him.[*]

The sentence of interdict was at that time the great instrument of
vengeance and policy employed by the court of Rome; was denounced
against sovereigns for the lightest offences; and made the guilt of one
person involve the ruin of millions, even in their spiritual and eternal
welfare. The execution of it was calculated to strike the senses in
the highest degree, and to operate with irresistible force on the
superstitious minds of the people. The nation was of a sudden deprived
of all exterior exercise of its religion: the altars were despoiled of
their ornaments: the crosses, the relics, the images, the statues of the
saints were laid on the ground; and as if the air itself were profaned,
and might pollute them by its contact, the priests carefully covered
them up, even from their own approach and veneration. The use of bells
entirely ceased in all the churches: the bells themselves were removed
from the steeples, and laid on the ground with the other sacred
utensils. Mass was celebrated with shut doors; and none but the
priests were admitted to that holy institution. The laity partook of no
religious rite, except baptism to new-born infants, and the communion to
the dying: the dead were not interred in consecrated ground: they were
thrown i