ior, Reginald, as Archbishop. The rival claimants hastened to
appeal to Rome, and their appeal reached the Papal Court before
Christmas. The result of the contest was a startling one both for
themselves and for the king. After a year's careful examination Innocent
the Third, who now occupied the Papal throne, quashed at the close of
1206 both the contested elections. The decision was probably a just one,
but Innocent was far from stopping there. The monks who appeared before
him brought powers from the convent to choose a new Primate should their
earlier nomination be set aside; and John, secretly assured of their
choice of Grey, had promised to confirm their election. But the bribes
which the king lavished at Rome failed to win the Pope over to this plan;
and whether from mere love of power, for he was pushing the Papal claims
of supremacy over Christendom further than any of his predecessors, or as
may fairly be supposed in despair of a free election within English
bounds, Innocent commanded the monks to elect in his presence Stephen
Langton to the archiepiscopal see.

[Sidenote: The Interdict]

Personally a better choice could not have been made, for Stephen was a
man who by sheer weight of learning and holiness of life had risen to the
dignity of Cardinal, and whose after career placed him in the front rank
of English patriots. But in itself the step was an usurpation of the
rights both of the Church and of the Crown. The king at once met it with
resistance. When Innocent consecrated the new Primate in June 1207, and
threatened the realm with interdict if Langton were any longer excluded
from his see, John replied by a counter-threat that the interdict should
be followed by the banishment of the clergy and the mutilation of every
Italian he could seize in the realm. How little he feared the priesthood
he showed when the clergy refused his demand of a thirteenth of movables
from the whole country and Archbishop Geoffry of York resisted the tax
before the Council. John banished the Archbishop and extorted the money.
Innocent however was not a man to draw back from his purpose, and in
March 1208 the interdict he had threatened fell upon the land. All
worship save that of a few privileged orders, all administration of
Sacraments save that of private baptism, ceased over the length and
breadth of the country: the church-bells were silent, the dead lay
unburied on the ground. Many of the bishops fled from the country. The