is wife,
after they had been separated for twenty years. Henceforth Philip was
the most active ally of the papacy.

While thus dealing with Philip of France, Innocent enjoyed easier
triumphs over the lesser kings of Europe. It was his ambition to break
through the traditional limits that separated the church from the
state, and to bind as many as he could of the kings of Europe to the
papacy by ties of political vassalage. The time-honored feudal
superiority of the popes over the Norman kingdom of Sicily had been
the first precedent for this most unecclesiastical of all papal
aggressions. Already others of the smaller kingdoms of Europe,
conspicuous among which was Portugal, had followed the example of the
Normans in becoming vassals of the holy see. Under Innocent at least
three states supplemented ecclesiastical by political dependence on
the papacy. Sancho, King of Portugal, who had striven to repudiate the
former submission of Alfonso I, was in the end forced to accept the
papal suzerainty. Peter, King of Aragon, went in 1204 to Rome and was
solemnly crowned king by Innocent. Afterward Peter deposited his crown
on the high altar of St. Peter's and condescended to receive the
investiture of his kingdom from the Pope, holding it as a perpetual
fief of the holy see, and promising tribute to Innocent and his
successors. In 1213 a greater monarch than the struggling Christian
kings of the Iberian peninsula was forced, after a long struggle, to
make an even more abject submission.

The long strife of Innocent with John of Anjou, about the disputed
election to the see of Canterbury, was fought with the same weapons
which the Pope had already employed against the King of France. But
John held out longer. Interdict was followed by excommunication and
threatened deposition. At last the English King surrendered his crown
to the papal agent Pandulf, and, like Peter of Aragon, received it
back as a vassal of the papacy, bound by an annual tribute.

Nor were these the only kings that sought the support of the great
Pope. The schismatic princes of the East vied in ardor with the
Catholic princes of the West in their quest of Innocent's favor. King
Leo of Armenia begged for his protection. The Bulgarian prince John
besought the Pope to grant him a royal crown. Innocent posed as a
mediator in Hungary between the two brothers, Emeric and Andrew, who
were struggling for the crown. Canute of Denmark, zealous for his
sister's honor,