ter for a fresh inroad into Wales, but the army met only to become
a fresh source of danger. Powerless to oppose the king openly, the
baronage had plunged almost to a man into secret conspiracies. The
hostility of Philip had dispelled their dread of isolated action; many
indeed had even promised aid to the French king on his landing. John
found himself in the midst of hidden enemies; and nothing could have
saved him but the haste--whether of panic or quick decision--with which
he disbanded his army and took refuge in Nottingham Castle. The arrest of
some of the barons showed how true were his fears, for the heads of the
French conspiracy, Robert Fitzwalter and Eustace de Vesci, at once fled
over sea to Philip. His daring self-confidence, the skill of his
diplomacy, could no longer hide from John the utter loneliness of his
position. At war with Rome, with France, with Scotland, Ireland, and
Wales, at war with the Church, he saw himself disarmed by this sudden
revelation of treason in the one force left at his disposal. With
characteristic suddenness he gave way. He endeavoured by remission of
fines to win back his people. He negotiated eagerly with the Pope,
consented to receive the Archbishop, and promised to repay the money he
had extorted from the Church.

[Sidenote: John becomes vassal of Rome]

But the shameless ingenuity of the king's temper was seen in his resolve
to find in his very humiliation a new source of strength. If he yielded
to the Church he had no mind to yield to the rest of his foes; it was
indeed in the Pope who had defeated him that he saw the means of baffling
their efforts. It was Rome that formed the link between the varied
elements of hostility which combined against him. It was Rome that gave
its sanction to Philip's ambition and roused the hopes of Scotch and
Welsh, Rome that called the clergy to independence, and nerved the barons
to resistance. To detach Innocent by submission from the league which
hemmed him in on every side was the least part of John's purpose. He
resolved to make Rome his ally, to turn its spiritual thunders on his
foes, to use it in breaking up the confederacy it had formed, in crushing
the baronage, in oppressing the clergy, in paralyzing--as Rome only could
paralyze--the energy of the Primate. That greater issues even than these
were involved in John's rapid change of policy time was to show; but
there is no need to credit the king with the foresight that would have