In November, 1296, at Bury, Winchelsea admitted the justice of the French war, but pleaded the pope’s decretal as an absolute bar to any grant from the clerical estate.  No decision was arrived at, and the problem was discussed again in the convocation of Canterbury in January, 1297.  “We have two lords over us,” declared the archbishop to his clergy, “the king and the pope; and, although we owe obedience to both of these, we owe greater obedience to our spiritual than to our temporal lord.”  All that they could do was to entreat the pope’s permission to allow them to pay Caesar that which Caesar by himself had no right to demand.  Edward burst into a fury on hearing of this new pretext for delay.  He declared that the clergy must pay a fifth, under penalty of his withdrawing his protection from a body which strove to stand outside the commonwealth.  The clergy remained firm, and separated without making any grant.  Thereupon, on January 30, the chief justice, John of Metingham, sitting in Westminster Hall, pronounced the clergy to be outlays.  “Henceforth,” he declared, “there shall be no justice meted out to a clerk in the court of the lord king, however atrocious be the injury from which he may have suffered.  But sentence against a clerk shall be given at the instance of all who have a complaint against him.”  Winchelsea retaliated by publishing the sentence of excommunication against violators of the papal bull.  Two days later the king ordered the sheriffs to take possession of the lay fees held by clerks in the province of Canterbury.  A few ecclesiastics, who privately made an offering of a fifth, were alone exempted from this command.

Edward’s conflict with the Church was followed within a month by a dispute of almost equal gravity with a section of the barons.  He summoned a baronial parliament to assemble on February 24 at Salisbury, and went down in person to explain his plan of campaign.  One force was to help his new ally, Guy of Flanders, while another was to act in Gascony.  Edward himself was to accompany the army to Flanders.  He requested some of the earls, including Norfolk and Hereford, to fight for him in Gascony.  The deaths of Edmund of Lancaster, Gilbert of Gloucester, and William of Pembroke had robbed the baronage of its natural leaders.  Earl Warenne was fully engaged in the north, and Lincoln was devoted to the king’s side.  The removal of other possible spokesmen made Norfolk and Hereford the champions of the party of opposition.  For years the friends of aristocratic authority had been smarting under the growing influence of the crown.  The time was ripe for a revival of the baronial opposition which a generation earlier had won the Provisions of Oxford.  Moreover both the earls had personal slights to avenge.  Hereford bitterly resented the punishment meted out to him for waging private war against Earl Gilbert in the march.  Norfolk was angry because, during the last Welsh campaign, Edward had suspended him from the exercise of the