the other hand, issued out writs, requiring the attendance of all his
military tenants at Dover, and even of all able-bodied men, to defend
the kingdom in this dangerous extremity. A great number appeared; and
he selected an army of sixty thousand men; a power invincible, had they
been united in affection to their prince, and animated with a becoming
zeal for the defence of their native country.[**]

[* M. Paris, p. 162. M. West, p. 271.]

[** M. Paris, p. 162. M. West, p. 271.]

But the people were swayed by superstition, and regarded their king with
horror, as anathematized by papal censures: the barons, besides lying
under the same prejudices, were all disgusted by his tyranny, and were,
many of them, suspected of holding a secret correspondence with the
enemy: and the incapacity and cowardice of the king himself, ill fitted
to contend with those mighty difficulties, made men prognosticate the
most fatal effects from the French invasion.

Pandolf, whom the pope had chosen for his legate, and appointed to
head this important expedition, had, before he left Rome, applied for
a secret conference with his master, and had asked him, whether, if the
king of England, in this desperate situation, were willing to submit
to the apostolic see, the church should, without the consent of Philip,
grant him any terms of accommodation.[*] Innocent, expecting from his
agreement with a prince so abject both in character and fortune, more
advantages than from his alliance with a great and victorious monarch,
who, after such mighty acquisitions, might become too haughty to be
bound by spiritual chains, explained to Pandolf the conditions on which
he was willing to be reconciled to the king of England. The legate,
therefore, as soon as he arrived in the north of France, sent over two
knights templars to desire an interview with John at Dover, which
was readily granted: he there represented to him in such strong, and
probably in such true colors, his lost condition, the disaffection of
his subjects, the secret combination of his vassals against him, the
mighty armament of France, that John yielded at discretion,[**] and
subscribed to all the conditions which Pandolf was pleased to impose
upon him. He promised, among other articles, that he would submit
himself entirely to the judgment of the pope; that he would acknowledge
Langton for primate; that he would restore all the exiled clergy and
laity who had been banished on acco