that he took three
hundred ships; destroyed a hundred more [o]; and Philip, finding it
impossible to prevent the rest from falling into the hands of the
enemy, set fire to them himself, and thereby rendered it impossible
for him to proceed any farther in his enterprise.
[FN [m] Trivet, p. 160. [n] M. Paris, p. 166. [o] Ibid. p. 166.
Chron. Dunst, vol. i. p. 59. Trivet, p. 157.]

John, exulting in his present security, insensible to his past
disgrace, was so elated with this success, that he thought of no less
than invading France in his turn, and recovering all those provinces
which the prosperous arms of Philip had formerly ravished from him.
He proposed this expedition to the barons, who were already assembled
for the defence of the kingdom. But the English nobles both hated and
despised their prince: they prognosticated no success to any
enterprise conducted by such a leader; and pretending that their time
of service was elapsed, and all their provisions exhausted, they
refused to second his undertaking [p]. The king, however, resolute in
his purpose, embarked with a few followers, and sailed to Jersey, in
the foolish expectation that the barons would at last be ashamed to
stay behind [q]. But finding himself disappointed, he returned to
England; and, raising some troops, threatened to take vengeance on all
his nobles for their desertion and disobedience. The Archbishop of
Canterbury, who was in a confederacy with the barons, here interposed;
strictly inhibited the king from thinking of such an attempt; and
threatened him with a renewal of the sentence of excommunication, if
he pretended to levy war upon any of his subjects, before the kingdom
were freed from the sentence of interdict [r].
[FN [p] M. Paris, p. 166. [q] M. Paris, p. 166. [r] Ibid. p. 167.]

The church had recalled the several anathemas pronounced against John,
by the same gradual progress with which she had at first issued them.
By receiving his homage, and admitting him to the rank of a vassal,
his deposition had been virtually annulled, and his subjects were
again bound by their oaths of allegiance. The exiled prelates had
then returned in great triumph, with Langton at their head; and the
king, hearing of their approach, went forth to meet them, and throwing
himself on the ground before them, he entreated them, with tears, to
have compassion on him and the kingdom of England [s]. [MN July.]
The primate, seeing these marks of sincere p