[Sidenote:  A.D. 1208.]

In England this proceeding was not so easily ratified.  John drove the monks of Canterbury from their monastery, and, having seized upon their revenues, threatened the effects of the same indignation against all those who seemed inclined to acquiesce in the proceedings of Rome.  But Rome had not made so bold a step with intention to recede.  On the king’s positive refusal to admit Langton, and the expulsion of the monks of Canterbury, England was laid under an interdict.  Then divine service at once ceased throughout the kingdom; the churches were shut; the sacraments were suspended; the dead were buried without honor, in highways and ditches, and the living deprived of all spiritual comfort.  On the other hand, the king let loose his indignation against the ecclesiastics,—­seizing their goods, throwing many into prison, and permitting or encouraging all sorts of violence against them.  The kingdom was thrown into the most terrible confusion; whilst the people, uncertain of the object or measure of their allegiance, and distracted with opposite principles of duty, saw themselves deprived of their religious rites by the ministers of religion, and their king, furious with wrongs not caused by them, falling indiscriminately on the innocent and the guilty:  for John, instead of soothing his people in this their common calamity, sought to terrify them into obedience.  In a progress which he made into the North, he threw down the inclosures of his forests, to let loose the wild beasts upon their lands; and as he saw the Papal proceedings increase with his opposition, he thought it necessary to strengthen himself by new devices.  He extorted hostages and a new oath of fidelity from his barons.  He raised a great army, to divert the thoughts of his subjects from brooding too much on their distracted condition.  This army he transported into Ireland; and as it happened to his father in a similar dispute with the Pope, whilst he was dubious of his hereditary kingdom, he subdued Ireland.  At this time he is said to have established the English laws in that kingdom, and to have appointed itinerant justices.

At length the sentence of excommunication was fulminated against the king.  In the same year the same sentence was pronounced upon the Emperor Otho; and this daring Pope was not afraid at once to drive to extremities the two greatest princes in Europe.  And truly, nothing is more remarkable than the uniform steadiness of the court of Rome in the pursuits of her ambitious projects.  For, knowing that pretensions which stand merely in opinion cannot bear to be questioned in any part, though she had hitherto seen the interdict produce but little effect, and perceived that the excommunication itself could draw scarce one poor bigot from the king’s service, yet she receded not the least point from the utmost of her demand.  She broke off an accommodation just on the point of being concluded, because the king refused to repair