who before long bettered the precedent given them.  The sordid story is mainly important to our history as an example of the completeness of the influence of the papal autocracy, and of the submissiveness of clergy and laity to its behests.  It was a lurid commentary on the practical working of the ecclesiastical system that the business of condemning an innocent order first brought into England the papal inquisitor and the use of torture.  Yet the whole process was but so pale a reflection of the horrors wrought in France that the conclusion arises that England owed more to the weakness of Edward II than France to the strength of Philip IV.

Winchelsea’s death removed a real check on Edward, especially as the king was on such good terms with the papacy that he had little difficulty in obtaining a successor amenable to his will.  Undeterred by Clement’s bull reserving to himself the appointment, the monks of Christ Church at once proceeded to elect Thomas of Cobham, a theologian and a canonist of distinction, a man of high birth, great sanctity, and unblemished character, and in every way worthy of the primacy.  But his merits did not weigh for a moment with Clement against the wishes of the king.  He rejected Cobham and conferred the primacy on Edwards favourite, Walter Reynolds, who had already obtained the bishopric of Worcester through the king’s influence.  A good deal of money, it was believed, found its way to the coffers of the curia; and the indignation of the English Church found voice in the impassioned protests of the chroniclers.  “Lady Money rules everything in the pope’s court,” lamented the monk of Malmesbury.  “For eight years Pope Clement has ruled the Universal Church:  but what good he has done escapes memory.  England, alone of all countries, feels the burden of papal domination.  Out of the fulness of his power, the pope presumes to do many things, and neither prince nor people dare contradict him.  He reserves all the fat benefices for himself, and excommunicates all who resist him:  his legates come and spoil the land:  those armed with his bulls come and demand prebends.  He has given all the deaneries to foreigners, and cut down the number of resident canons.  Why does the pope exercise greater power over the clergy than the emperor over the laity?  Lord Jesus! either take away the pope from our midst or lessen the power which he presumes to have over the people.”  Such lamentations bore no fruit, and the simoniacal nomination of Reynolds was but the first of a series of appointments which robbed the episcopate of dignity and moral worth.