perhaps more openly than any of his predecessors, to
convert that superiority which was yielded him by all the European
princes into a real dominion over them. The hierarchy, protected by
the Roman pontiff, had already carried to an enormous height its
usurpations upon the civil power; but in order to extend them farther,
and render them useful to the court of Rome, it was necessary to
reduce the ecclesiastics themselves under an absolute monarchy, and to
make them entirely dependent on their spiritual leader. For this
purpose, Innocent first attempted to impose taxes at pleasure upon the
clergy; and in the first year of this century, taking advantage of the
popular frenzy for crusades, he sent collectors over all Europe, who
levied, by his authority, the fortieth of all ecclesiastical revenues
for the relief of the Holy Land, and received the voluntary
contributions of the laity to a like amount [a]. The same year
Hubert, Archbishop of Canterbury, attempted another innovation,
favourable to ecclesiastical and papal power: in the king's absence,
he summoned, by his legatine authority, a synod of all the English
clergy, contrary to the inhibition of Geoffrey Fitz-Peter, the chief
justiciary; and no proper censure was ever passed on this
encroachment, the first of the kind, upon the royal power. But a
favourable incident soon after happened, which enabled so aspiring a
pontiff as Innocent to extend still farther his usurpations on so
contemptible a prince as John.
[FN [a] Rymer, vol. i. p. 119.]

Hubert the primate died in 1205; and as the monks or canons of Christ-
Church, Canterbury, possessed a right of voting in the election of
their archbishop, some of the juniors of the order, who lay in wait
for that event, met clandestinely the very night of Hubert's death,
and, without any conge d'elire from the king, chose Reginald, their
sub-prior, for the successor; installed him in the archiepiscopal
throne before midnight; and, having enjoined him the strictest
secrecy, sent him immediately to Rome, in order to solicit the
confirmation of his election [b]. The vanity of Reginald prevailed
over his prudence; and he no sooner arrived in Flanders, than he
revealed to every one the purpose of his journey, which was
immediately known in England [c]. The king was enraged at the novelty
and temerity of the attempt, in filling so important an office without
his knowledge or consent: the suffragan bishops of Canterbury, who