importance.  Just at this critical time died Hubert, archbishop of that see, a man who had a large share in procuring the crown for John, and in weakening its authority by his acts at the ceremony of the coronation, as well as by his subsequent conduct.  Immediately on the death of this prelate, a cabal of obscure monks, of the Abbey of St. Augustin, assemble by night, and first binding themselves by a solemn oath not to divulge their proceedings, until they should be confirmed by the Pope, they elect one Reginald, their sub-prior, Archbishop of Canterbury.  The person elected immediately crossed the seas; but his vanity soon discovered the secret of his greatness.  The king received the news of this transaction with surprise and indignation.  Provoked at such a contempt of his authority, he fell severely on the monastery, no less surprised than himself at the clandestine proceeding of some of its members.  But the sounder part pacified him in some measure by their submission.  They elected a person recommended by the king, and sent fourteen of the most respectable of their body to Rome, to pray that the former proceedings should be annulled, and the later and more regular confirmed.  To this matter of contention another was added.  A dispute had long subsisted between the suffragan bishops of the province of Canterbury and the monks of the Abbey of St. Austin, each claiming a right to elect the metropolitan.  This dispute was now revived, and pursued with much vigor.  The pretensions of the three contending parties were laid before the Pope, to whom such disputes were highly pleasing, as he knew that all claimants willingly conspire to flatter and aggrandize that authority from which they expect a confirmation of their own.  The first election, he nulled, because its irregularity was glaring.  The right of the bishops was entirely rejected:  the Pope looked with an evil eye upon those whose authority he was every day usurping.  The second election was set aside, as made at the king’s instance:  this was enough to make it very irregular.  The canon law had now grown up to its full strength.  The enlargement of the prerogative of the Pope was the great object of this jurisprudence,—­a prerogative which, founded on fictitious monuments, that are forged in an ignorant age, easily admitted by a credulous people, and afterwards confirmed and enlarged by these admissions, not satisfied with the supremacy, encroached on every minute part of Church government, and had almost annihilated the episcopal jurisdiction throughout Europe.  Some canons had given the metropolitan a power of nominating a bishop, when the circumstances of the election were palpably irregular; and as it does not appear that there was any other judge of the irregularity than the metropolitan himself, the election below in effect became nugatory.  The Pope, taking the irregularity in this case for granted, in virtue of this canon, and by his plenitude of power, ordered the deputies of Canterbury to proceed to a new election.  At the same time he recommended to their choice Stephen Langton, their countryman,—­a person already distinguished for his learning, of irreproachable morals, and free from every canonical impediment.  This authoritative request the monks had not the courage to oppose in the Pope’s presence and in his own city.  They murmured, and submitted.