st of Scotland cost much money, and
Edward, finding his ordinary revenue insufficient, had been driven to
increase it by unusual means. He gathered assemblies of the merchants,
and persuaded them without the leave of Parliament to increase the
export duties, and he also induced the clergy in the same way to grant
him large sums. The clergy were the first to resist. In =1296=
Boniface VIII., a Pope who pushed to the extreme the Papal claims to
the independence of the Church, issued the Bull, _Clericis laicos_, in
which he declared that the clergy were not to pay taxes without the
Pope's consent; and when at the end of the year Edward called on his
Parliament to grant him fresh sums, Winchelsey, the Archbishop of
Canterbury, refused, on the ground of this Bull, to allow a penny to
be levied from the clergy. Edward, instead of arguing with him,
directed the chief justice of the King's Bench to announce that, as
the clergy would pay no taxes, they would no longer be protected by
the king. The clergy now found themselves in evil case. Anyone who
pleased could rob them or beat them, and no redress was to be had.
They soon therefore evaded their obligation to obey the Bull, and paid
their taxes, under the pretence that they were making presents to the
king, on which Edward again opened his courts to them. In the days of
Henry I. or Henry II. it would not have been possible to treat the
clergy in this fashion. The fact was, that the mass of the people now
looked to the king instead of to the Church for protection, and
therefore respected the clergy less than they had done in earlier
days.

14. =The 'Confirmatio Cartarum.' 1297.=--In =1297= Edward, having
subdued the Scots in the preceding year, resolved to conduct one army
to Flanders, and to send another to Gascony to maintain his rights
against Philip IV. He therefore called on his barons to take part in
these enterprises. Amongst those ordered to go to Gascony were Roger
Bigod, Earl of Norfolk, and Humfrey Bohun, Earl of Hereford. They
declared that they were only bound to follow the king himself, and
that as Edward was not going in person to Gascony they would not go.
"By God, Sir Earl," said the king to one of them, "you shall either go
or hang." "By God," was the reply, "I will neither go nor hang." The
two earls soon found support. The barons were sore because Edward's
reforms had diminished their authority. The clergy were sore because
of their recent treatment. The me