ntiff, casting his eyes around, fixed at
last on Philip, King of France, as the person into whose powerful hand
he could most properly intrust that weapon, the ultimate resource of
his ghostly authority. And he offered the monarch, besides the
remission of all his sins and endless spiritual benefits, the property
and possession of the kingdom of England, as the reward of his labour
[d].
[FN [c] M. Paris, p. 161. M. West. p. 270. [d] M. Paris, p. 162. M.
West. p. 271.]

[MN 1213.] It was the common concern of all princes to oppose these
exorbitant pretensions of the Roman pontiff, by which they themselves
were rendered vassals, and vassals totally dependent, of the papal
crown: yet even Philip, the most able monarch of the age, was seduced
by present interest, and by the prospect of so tempting a prize, to
accept this liberal offer of the pontiff, and thereby to ratify that
authority which, if he ever opposed its boundless usurpations, might,
next day, tumble him from the throne. He levied a great army;
summoned all the vassals of the crown to attend him at Rouen;
collected a fleet of seventeen hundred vessels, great and small, in
the sea-ports of Normandy and Picardy; and partly from the zealous
spirit of the age, partly from the personal regard universally paid
him, prepared a force, which seemed equal to the greatness of his
enterprise. The king, on the other hand, issued out writs, requiring
the attendance of all his military tenants at Dover, and even of all
able-bodied men, to defend the kingdom in this dangerous extremity. A
great number appeared; and he selected an army of sixty thousand men;
a power invincible, had they been united in affection to their prince,
and animated with a becoming zeal for the defence of their native
country [e]. But the people were swayed by superstition, and regarded
their king with horror, as anathematized by papal censures: the
barons, besides lying under the same prejudices, were all disgusted by
his tyranny, and were, many of them, suspected of holding a secret
correspondence with the enemy; and the incapacity and cowardice of the
king himself, ill fitted to contend with those mighty difficulties,
made men prognosticate the most fatal effects from the French
invasion.
[FN [e] M. Paris, p. 163. M. West. p. 271.]

Pandolf, whom the pope had chosen for his legate, and appointed to
head this important expedition, had, before he left Rome, applied for
a secret conference