the prospect of sharing
the spoils of England, and reaping the forfeitures of so many opulent
barons, who had incurred the guilt of rebellion, by rising in arms
against him. And he despatched a messenger to Rome, in order to lay
before the pope the Great Charter, which he had been compelled to sign,
and to complain, before that tribunal, of the violence which had been
imposed upon him.

Innocent, considering himself as feudal lord of the kingdom, was
incensed at the temerity of the barons, who, though they pretended to
appeal to his authority, had dared, without waiting for his consent, to
impose such terms on a prince, who, by resigning to the Roman pontiff
his crown and independence, had placed himself immediately under the
papal protection. He issued, therefore, a bull, in which, from the
plenitude of his apostolic power, and from the authority which God had
committed to him, to build and destroy kingdoms, to plant and overthrow,
he annulled and abrogated the whole charter, as unjust in itself,
as obtained by compulsion, and as derogatory to the dignity of the
apostolic see. He prohibited the barons from exacting the observance of
it: he even prohibited the king himself from paying any regard to it:
he absolved him and his subjects from all oaths which they had been
constrained to take to that purpose; and he pronounced a general
sentence of excommunication against every one who should persevere in
maintaining such treasonable and iniquitous pretensions.

The king, as his foreign forces arrived along with this bull now
ventured to take off the mask; and, under sanction of the pope's decree,
recalled all the liberties which he had granted to his subjects, and
which he had solemnly sworn to observe. But the spiritual weapon was
found upon trial to carry less force with it than he had reason from
his own experience to apprehend. The primate refused to obey the pope
in publishing the sentence of excommunication against the barons; and
though he was cited to Rome, that he might attend a general council
there assembled, and was suspended, on account of his disobedience to
the pope, and his secret correspondence with the king's enemies; though
a new and particular sentence of excommunication was pronounced by name
against the principal barons; John still found that his nobility and
people, and even his clergy, adhered to the defence of their liberties,
and to their combination against him: the sword of his foreign
mercen