Canterbury alone; twenty-three thousand for the see of Lincoln; and the
king, finding these pretensions to be exorbitant and endless, offered
the clergy the sum of a hundred thousand marks for a final acquittal,
The clergy rejected the offer with disdain; but the pope, willing to
favor his new vassal, whom he found zealous in his declarations of
fealty, and regular in paying the stipulated tribute to Rome, directed
his legate to accept of forty thousand. The issue of the whole was, that
the bishops and considerable abbots got reparation beyond what they
had any title to demand; the inferior clergy were obliged to sit down
contented with their losses: and the king, after the interdict was taken
off, renewed, in the most solemn manner, and by a new charter sealed
with gold, his professions of homage and obedience to the see of Rome.

[* M. Paris, p. 166. Ann. Waverl. p. 178.]

[** M. Paris, p. 166.]

{1214.} When this vexatious affair was at last brought to a conclusion,
the king, as if he had nothing further to attend but triumphs
and victories, went over to Poictou, which still acknowledged his
authority;[*] and he carried war into Philip's dominions.

[* Queen Eleanor died in 1203 or 1204.]

He besieged a castle near Angiers; but the approach of Prince Lewis,
Philip's son, obliged him to raise the siege with such precipitation,
that he left his tents, machines, and baggage behind him; and he
returned to England with disgrace. About the same time, he heard of the
great and decisive victory gained by the king of France at Bovines over
the emperor Otho, who had entered France at the head of one hundred and
fifty thousand Germans; a victory which established forever the glory
of Philip, and gave full security to all his dominions. John could,
therefore, think henceforth of nothing further than of ruling peaceably
his own kingdom; and his close connections with the pope, which he was
determined at any price to maintain, insured him, as he imagined the
certain attainment of that object. But the last and most grievous scene
of this prince's misfortunes still awaited him; and he was destined to
pass through a series of more humiliating circumstances than had ever
yet fallen to the lot of any other monarch.

The introduction of the feudal law into England by William the Conqueror
had much infringed the liberties, however imperfect, enjoyed by the
Anglo-Saxons in their ancient government, and had reduced the