CHAP. 1258 Abuse of the royal power of appoint ment. Opposition of the Church to royal ,power. been often so unworthy as to justify papal interference, and to the papal choice we owe some of the greatest ornaments of the English Church. But the same defence cannot be made for the king; Peter des Roches, Archbishop Boniface, Aylmer of Winchester, Peter d'Aigueblanche, are mournful illustrations of the use he made of royal power. It is evident that the theory of the independence of the Church had made but little advance in England, though it had received constitutional recognition in Magna Carta. The English Church was indeed less independent of the king in 1258 than in 1215, and far less independent of the Pope than in the days of Becket. But this subjection to royal power was more and more resented. Ideas on this point were now further developed; ecclesiastical principles were more closely applied to the existing state of society than ever before. In the great manifesto of ecclesiastical rights which Grosseteste published about the year 1236, in the form of a letter to the primate,' he opposed the recent ordinance by which the king appointed abbots as itinerant justices, laying down the principle that no Theories of ecclesiastic can hold a secular office. The subjection of ecclesiastical to secular tribunals 'in actione personali,' and especially in cases of supposed disobedience to royal mandate, was objected to on the ground that consecrated members are freer than lay members of the great body of the Church, just as the spirit rules the flesh, not the flesh the spirit. Ecclesiastical judges ought to decide in disputed questions whether a case belonged to the ecclesiastical or to the secular court, Grosseteste in 1236. 'Grosseteste, Epist. lxxii. p. 205. CHAP. VI. 1258 seeing that authority is delegated by the former, as by a superior, to the latter. The king, it was alleged, violated this principle; nay, he went further, and often prevented ecclesiastics from deciding in purely ecclesiastical cases, or hindered their decision, sometimes even gave judgment himself. Bishops ought not to be compelled to give account of their right to presentation, or their reasons for refusing those offered for preferment; in cases of disputed patronage the ecclesiastical courts should decide; it might even be questioned whether laymen ought to have patronage at all. This last principle was not, as we have seen, Collisions the general opinion of the bishops, nor did Grosseteste make a dogma of it; but, even omitting this, the theory put forward was one which could not fail to bring the ecclesiastical into perpetual conflict with the secular power. It is noteworthy that Grosseteste in this letter never appeals to Magna Carta: once only he appeals to the Oxford Council of 1222, in which Archbishop Langton excommunicated the violators of ecclesiastical liberties. His arguments are chiefly deduced from analogies from the Old Testament, from the primitive Church, or the writings of the Fathers. of Church and State. of the Church Henry. The wrongs which the Church, like other bodies, Grievances had to complain of under Henry III were not so much consistent oppression as constantly recurrent against molestation, an ever-varying infringement of privilege, a total want of sympathy with other mens opinions, an inherent love of irregularity. The king often interfered with elections; he strove, when unable to persuade the clergy en masse, to extort money from the prelates separately, he made monasteries pay for CHAP. 1258 Grievances of the Church against Henry a conge d'élire,' issued edicts affecting the Church without its consent, claimed the property of ecclesiastics dying intestate, and finally endeavoured to prevent discussion in the ecclesiastical assemblies altogether. The great difficulty of determining the lay and ecclesiastical jurisdiction, which Grosseteste tried to settle, was constantly appearing. The clergy in 1240 complained of the interference of secular judges in ecclesiastical cases, and the articles3 which the English Church in 1258 declared to be of the most pressing importance have special reference to the summoning of prelates before secular tribunals, the liberation by secular authorities of culprits condemned in ecclesiastical courts, as well as the punishment of the latter by loss of temporal property, and many other questions of a similar nature. An attempt was made by the king in 1247, at a time when he was on unusually good terms with the majority of the clergy, owing to his temporary opposition to the Pope, to settle many of the disputed points, and rather to the advantage of the Church: but, if we are to believe the clergy, he did not regard his own enactments in this more than in any other matter. produce an We have a list of grievances, drawn up by Bishop Grosseteste, in which the same complaints were made, and many minor charges brought against the king and his sheriffs and bailiffs, of unjust action at law, interference with the testaments of priests, and the like. It must, of course, be remembered that we have here only one side of the question; still, grant advance in theory. E.g. St. Albans paid 300 marks in 1235.-Gest. Abb. St. Alb. i. 307. Matt. Par. 727. CHAP. VI. 1258 Theories of Grosseteste ing that there is some exaggeration, there will remain a large residuum of truth, which must have weighed very heavily against the king in the approaching struggle. The list of privileges of the Church, compiled by Robert Marsh, under the direction of the Bishop of Lincoln, contains theories still further advanced than those in the protest already mentioned, with which he began his episcopate. The principle of separate jurisdiction is maintained in this in 1250. document, even to the extent that no ecclesiastic should be compelled to take an oath in a secular court; and the theory of the sacredness of Church property, of the servants of the Church, of property under its protection, is expressed with great fulness and vigour. 'As the father is not subject to the son,' argues the compiler of this ecclesiastical Bill of Rights, neither should the ecclesiastic be subject to the layman.' Such then were the relations in which. the Church stood towards king and Pope, such its internal condition, and the ideas that animated it, such the grievances that aroused its opposition and welded it together, till it grew to be the soundest element of the party at the head of which Simon de Montfort stood. ་ baronage: fitfulness of their opposition. The other of the two great supports of the na- ii. The tional party, the lay barons, had not so much to complain of as the Church, while they had more power of resisting oppression. Consequently their resistance was more fitful and their principles less developed, though on the other hand their temporal power made them more important when it once came to blows. Their greatest ground of complaint, as it was one of the greatest in the Church, was the ruinous. CHAP. 1258 Grievances of the baronage: aliens, their pernicious influence, influx of aliens into England. These persons, headed by the queens uncles and afterwards by the kings half-brothers, seized upon the posts of honour and emolument near the kings person, were thrust into important positions, as sheriffs, bailiffs, and castellans, and completely occupied the kings ear, to the exclusion of the rightful governors and councillors of the realm. England for the English' was the cry which raised the loudest response; the expulsion of the aliens was the first step of the victorious barons in 1258, as it had been the first step of the reformers of 1215. Not only was universal jealousy stirred up, but enormous loss entailed upon the country by the influence of foreigners over the king, which they made use of to persuade him to war and other undertakings against the advice of his council; by their extravagance and the kings imprudent generosity to them; and by the violations of feudal rights, especially in the matter of wards and widows, which were pertheir sake: petrated for their advantage. It was chiefly to ensure against these that the Statute of Merton was passed. The breaches of trust committed by the king as guardian form a most important item in the baronial indictment, and the ground on which it was easiest to bring home to him direct violation of the law. Another grave point in which the king in abuses of feudal power for 1 A notable instance of this kind of injustice is the story of the widowed Countess of Arundel, who, appealing to the king for recogni tion of her right to a certain wardship, which the king unjustly kept in his own hands, was received by Henry with sneers and banter; upon which, woman though she was, she delivered her testimony in the kings face in so masculine a manner, that Henry, utterly abashed, and acknowledging the truth of her statement, was forced to give way for the time; yet she did not gain her plea, but returned, after great trouble and expense, without success.-Matt. Par. 853, s.a. 1252. |