earthly power as the sun is than the moon. And now Innocent carried out
this further by saying that, as the lesser light (the moon) borrows of
the greater light (the sun), so the royal power is borrowed from the
priestly power.

Innocent pretended to a right of judging between the princes who
claimed the empire and the kingdom of Germany, and of making an emperor
by his own choice. He forced the king of France, Philip Augustus, to do
justice to a virtuous Danish princess, whom he had married and had
afterwards put away. And he forced John of England to accept Stephen
Langton as archbishop of Canterbury, although Langton was appointed by
the pope without any regard to the rights of the clergy or of the
sovereign of England. Both in France and in England Innocent made use of
what was called an _interdict_ to make people submit to his will. By
this sentence (which had first come into use about three hundred years
before), a whole country was punished at once, the bad and the good
alike; all the churches were closed, all the bells were silenced, all
the outward signs of religion were taken away. There was no blessing for
marriage, there were no prayers at the burial of the dead; the baptism
of children and the office for the dying were the only services of the
Church which were allowed while the interdict lasted. And it was
commonly found, that, although a king might not himself care for any
spiritual threats or sentences which the pope might utter, he was unable
to hold out against the general feeling of his people, who could not
bear to be without the rites of religion, and cried out that the
innocent thousands were punished for the sake of one guilty person.

John was completely subdued to the papacy, and agreed to give up his
crown to the pope's commissioner, Pandulf; after which he received it
again from Pandulf's hands, and promised to hold the kingdoms of England
and Ireland under the condition of paying a yearly tribute as an
acknowledgment that the pope was his lord.

Archbishop Langton, although he had been forced on the English Church by
the pope, yet afterwards took a different line from what might have been
expected. For when John, by his tyranny, provoked his barons to rise
against him, the archbishop was at the head of those who wrung from the
king the Great Charter as a security for English liberty; and, although
the pope was violently angry, and threatened to punish the archbishop
and the barons severely,