Pope at Rome; the King was little more than a tool of
the hierarchy.

It was at this crisis that the Parliaments of England, if they did not
actually begin, yet first attained to a definite form and efficiency.

The opposition of the country to the ecclesiastico-temporal government
became most conspicuous in the year 1257, when Henry, happy beyond
measure in his son's being raised to royal rank by the Apostolic See,
presented his son to the Great Council of the nation, already wearing
the national costume of Naples, and named the sum, to the payment of
which he had pledged himself in return. The Estates at once refused
their consent to his accepting the crown, which they considered could
not be maintained owing to the untrustworthiness of the Italians, and
of the Romish See itself, and the distance of the country; the
money-pledge excited loud displeasure. Since they were required to
redeem it, they reasonably enough gave it to be understood that they
ought to have been consulted first. It was precisely the alliance of
the Pope and the King that they had long felt most bitterly; they said
truly, England would by such a joint action be as it were ground to
dust between two millstones. As, however, despite all remonstrances,
the demands were persevered with,--for the King had taken on himself
the debts incurred by Pope Alexander IV in the Neapolitan war, and the
Pope had already referred to England the bankers entrusted with the
payments,--a storm of opposition broke out, which led to what was
equivalent to an overthrow of the government. The King had to consent
to the appointment of a committee for reforming the realm, to be named
in equal proportions by himself and by the barons; from this, however,
was selected a council of fifteen members, in which the King's
opponents had a decisive majority. They put forth Statutes, at Oxford,
which virtually stripped the King of his power; he had to swear to
them with a lighted taper in his hand. The Pope without hesitation at
once condemned these ordinances; King Louis IX of France also, who was
called in as arbiter, decided against them: and some moderate men drew
back from them: but among the rest the zeal with which they held to
them was thus only inflamed to greater violence. They had the King in
their power, and felt themselves strong enough to impose their will on
him as law.

Without doubt they had the opinion of the country on their side. For
the first time since the C