ifferent countries were continually making
forays into each other's territories, or waging war against
each other with fire and sword. These wars arose sometimes
from a lawless spirit of depredation, and sometimes were
waged to resent personal insults or injuries, real or
imaginary.

4. The Pope of Rome, who claimed jurisdiction over the
Church in England as well as elsewhere, was constantly
coming into collision with the civil power.

From some one or other of these several causes, the kingdom of
England, in the time of Richard's predecessors, was seldom at peace.
Some great quarrel or other was continually going on. There was a
great deal of difficulty during the reigns that immediately preceded
that of Richard the Second between the kings and the Pope. The Pope,
as has already been remarked, was considered the head of the whole
Christian Church, and he claimed rights in respect to the appointment
of the archbishops, and bishops, and other ecclesiastics in England,
and in respect to the government and control of the monasteries, and
the abbeys, and to the appropriation and expenditure of the revenues
of the Church, which sometimes interfered very seriously with the
views and designs of the king. Hence there arose continual disputes
and quarrels. The Pope never came himself to England, but he often
sent a grand embassador, called a legate, who traveled with great pomp
and parade, and with many attendants, and assumed in all his doings a
most lofty and superior air. In the contests in which these legates
were engaged with the kings, the legates almost always came off
conquerors through the immense influence which the Pope exercised over
the consciences and religious fears of the mass of the people.

Sometimes the visits of the legates and their proceedings among the
people led to open broils. At one time, for instance, the legate was
at Oxford, where the great University, now so renowned throughout the
world, already existed. He was lodged at an abbey there, and some of
the scholars of the University wishing to pay their respects to him,
as they said, went in a body to the gates of the abbey and demanded
admission; but the porter kept them back and refused to let them in.
Upon this a great noise and tumult arose, the students pressing
against the gates to get in, and the porter, assisted by the legate's
men, whom he called to his assistance, resisting them.

In the course of