eased from their allegiance, and
his kingdom offered to anyone who would conquer it. In his extremity,
the King of England is said to have sent a messenger to Spain, offering
to become a Mohammedan. The religious sentiment was then no higher in
him than it was, under a like provocation, in the King of France, whose
thoughts turned in the same direction. But, pressed irresistibly by
Innocent, John was compelled to surrender his realm, agreeing to pay to
the pope, in addition to Peter's pence, 1000 marks a year as a token of
vassalage. When the prelates whom he had refused or exiled returned, he
was compelled to receive them on his knees--humiliations which aroused
the indignation of the stout English barons, and gave strength to those
movements which ended in extorting Magna Charta. Never, however, was
Innocent more mistaken than in the character of Stephen Langton. John
had, a second time, formally surrendered his realm to the pope, and done
homage to the legate for it; but Stephen Langton was the first--at a
meeting of the chiefs of the revolt against the king, held in London,
August 25th, 1213--to suggest that they should demand a renewal of the
charter of Henry I. From this suggestion Magna Charta originated. Among
the miracles of the age, he was the greatest miracle of all; his
patriotism was stronger than his profession. The wrath of the pontiff
knew no bounds when he learned that the Great Charter had been conceded.
In his bull, he denounced it as base and ignominious; he anathematized
the king if he observed it; he declared it null and void. It was not the
policy of the Roman court to permit so much as the beginnings of such
freedom. The appointment of Simon Langton to the archbishopric of York
was annulled. One De Gray was substituted for him. It illustrated the
simony into which the papal government had fallen, that De Gray had
become, in these transactions, indebted to Rome ten thousand pounds.
[Sidenote: The drain of money from that country.] In fact, through the
operation of the Crusades, all Europe was tributory to the pope. He had
his fiscal agents in every metropolis; his travelling ones wandering in
all directions, in every country, raising revenue by the sale of
dispensations for all kinds of offences, real and fictitious--money for
the sale of appointments, high and low--a steady drain of money from
every realm. Fifty years after the time of which we are speaking, Robert
Grostete, the Bishop of Lincoln a