Church in fact, so long the main support of the royal power against the
baronage, was now driven into opposition. Its change of attitude was to
be of vast moment in the struggle which was impending; but John recked
little of the future; he replied to the interdict by confiscating the
lands of the clergy who observed it, by subjecting them in spite of their
privileges to the royal courts, and by leaving outrages on them
unpunished. "Let him go," said John, when a Welshman was brought before
him for the murder of a priest, "he has killed my enemy." In 1209 the
Pope proceeded to the further sentence of excommunication, and the king
was formally cut off from the pale of the Church. But the new sentence
was met with the same defiance as the old. Five of the bishops fled over
sea, and secret disaffection was spreading widely, but there was no
public avoidance of the excommunicated king. An Archdeacon of Norwich who
withdrew from his service was crushed to death under a cope of lead, and
the hint was sufficient to prevent either prelate or noble from following
his example.

[Sidenote: The Deposition]

The attitude of John showed the power which the administrative reforms of
his father had given to the Crown. He stood alone, with nobles estranged
from him and the Church against him, but his strength seemed utterly
unbroken. From the first moment of his rule John had defied the baronage.
The promise to satisfy their demand for redress of wrongs in the past
reign, a promise made at his election, remained unfulfilled; when the
demand was repeated he answered it by seizing their castles and taking
their children as hostages for their loyalty. The cost of his fruitless
threats of war had been met by heavy and repeated taxation, by increased
land tax and increased scutage. The quarrel with the Church and fear of
their revolt only deepened his oppression of the nobles. He drove De
Braose, one of the most powerful of the Lords Marchers, to die in exile,
while his wife and grandchildren were believed to have been starved to
death in the royal prisons. On the nobles who still clung panic-stricken
to the court of the excommunicate king John heaped outrages worse than
death. Illegal exactions, the seizure of their castles, the preference
shown to foreigners, were small provocations compared with his attacks on
the honour of their wives and daughters. But the baronage still
submitted. The financial exactions indeed became light as John fi