er recur, and the orators of the
old platform should revive a taste for anti-papal agitation, they might
find in Matthew Paris as rich a repertory of testimonials against Roman
aggression and greed as the most rabid Irish Protestant could desire. 'O
thou Pope,' he bursts out once, 'thou the father of all the fathers in
Christ, how it is that thou sufferest the realms of Christendom to be
fouled by such creatures as are thine?' The 'creatures' were the papal
legates and nuncios and all their belongings, who were plundering
England without shame. 'Harpies they were and blood-suckers,' says
Matthew, 'mere plunderers, skinning the sheep, not shearing them only.'
Then there were the King's Justiciars--'Justice'--nay, with that they
had nothing to do. Why tell of their unrighteous deeds? he asks. 'Better
forbear from vainly writing about the _wrongers_, and return to the
story of the wronged.'

Of course the friars come in for their share of strong words--chiefly
because the Pope made use of them so vilely, and not less because they
set themselves above their betters--us, to wit--monks of the old houses.

'They started with such fair professions, they were going to
be so very poor, and so very unworldly, and were going to
supplement our work and interfere with nobody, and give us
all a helping hand. Look at them now!' says Matthew; 'they
march through the streets in pompous array with banners
flaunting in the sun and waxen tapers, and rich burghers in
holiday garments joining in the long train, and if they have
no land they have money, good store, and as for their
churches, they are eclipsing us all. Their invasion of our
territory is a dreadful scandal, and they sneer at us and at
all other religious men and women and they flout the parish
priests and call them humdrums, and schism is at work
horribly, and the people are running away from the old
guides, and there is no end to them. Actually in the year of
grace 1257,' he says, 'a new order of these fellows turned
up in London. Friars of the sack, forsooth, because they
were clothed in sackcloth! Of course they came armed with a
papal licence as usual. What did these fellows come for? Was
it to make confusion worse confounded? Alas! Alas! If we had
only been as we were in the golden age, these friars would
never have had a chance--not they! We too are not as the
m