als of our
nation" (vol. ii., p. 297). It is important to remember, further, that
Edward was no timid weakling, ready to yield to others through
weakness or fear. Quite the contrary. He was strong, war-like, and
courageous. Hume informs us that "he curbed the licentiousness of the
great; that he made his foremost nobles feel his power, and that they
dared not even murmur against it, and that his valour and conduct made
his knights and warriors successful in most of their enterprises"
(_id._, p. 497). Yet, in spite of his strong, independent and man-like
character--or shall we not rather say because of it?--he ever showed
himself to be a most loyal child of the Catholic Church. He considered
it no indication of weakness to acknowledge the spiritual supremacy
and jurisdiction of the Sovereign Pontiff, and to subscribe himself as
a most obedient son of the Vicar of Jesus Christ, as we shall now
proceed to prove, in spite of all the frogs and jackdaws that the
Bishop of London appeals to as witnesses to the contrary.

Now, it so fell out that, in the second decade of his reign, certain
persons, with perhaps more zeal than discretion, began to lodge sundry
complaints against the King. They carried stories to Rome, and sought
to prejudice the Pope, Benedict XII., against King Edward. In the
course of time the King got wind of what was going on, and found that
the suspicions of the Pope had been raised against him. Now, what did
Edward do? If he had been a modern Anglican, he would have snapped his
fingers at the Pope. Forgetful of Our Lord's words, "Unless you become
as little children you shall not enter the Kingdom of heaven," he
would have proudly declared that no Pope or foreign Bishop could claim
any jurisdiction in England, for that he himself was, in his own
realm, the supreme authority in things ecclesiastical as well as in
things temporal. Such would have been the natural and obvious course
for him to have taken. That is to say had he been a modern Anglican.
But since he was not a modern Anglican, but a genuine Roman Catholic
to his very backbone, like all the rest of his kingdom, he did not act
in that imperious, off-hand way, but was very much distressed and
concerned, as a loving son would be, who had incurred the displeasure
of a generous father. Finally, in the thirteenth year of his reign,
that is to say, in 1339, he determined to address a letter to the
Sovereign Pontiff, firstly to protest against these accus