enitence, led him to the
chapter-house of Winchester, and there administered an oath to him, by
which he again swore fealty and obedience to Pope Innocent and his
successors; promised to love, maintain, and defend holy church and the
clergy; engaged that he would re-establish the good laws of his
predecessors, particularly those of St. Edward, and would abolish the
wicked ones; and expressed his resolution of maintaining justice and
right in all his dominions [t]. The primate next gave him absolution
in the requisite forms, and admitted him to dine with him, to the
great joy of all the people. The sentence of interdict, however, was
still upheld against the kingdom. A new legate, Nicholas, Bishop of
Frescati, came into England in the room of Pandolf; and he declared it
to be the pope's intentions never to loosen that sentence till full
restitution were made to the clergy of every thing taken from them,
and ample reparation for all damages which they had sustained. He
only permitted mass to be said with a low voice in the churches, till
those losses and damages could be estimated to the satisfaction of the
parties. Certain barons were appointed to take an account of the
claims; and John was astonished at the greatness of the sums to which
the clergy made their losses to amount. No less than twenty thousand
marks were demanded by the monks of Canterbury alone; twenty-three
thousand for the see of Lincoln; and the king, finding these
pretensions to be exorbitant and endless, offered the clergy the sum
of a hundred thousand marks for a final acquittal. The clergy
rejected the offer with disdain; but the pope, willing to favour his
new vassal, whom he found zealous in his declarations of fealty, and
regular in paying the stipulated tribute to Rome, directed his legate
to accept of forty thousand. The issue of the whole was, that the
bishops and considerable abbots got reparation beyond what they had
any title to demand; the inferior clergy were obliged to sit down
contented with their losses; and the king, after the interdict was
taken off, renewed, in the most solemn manner, and by a new charter,
sealed with gold, his professions of homage and obedience to the see
of Rome.
[FN [s] Ibid. p. 166. Ann. Waverl. p. 178. [t] M. Paris, p. 166.]

[MN 1214.] When this vexatious affair was at last brought to a
conclusion, the king, as if he had nothing farther to attend to but
triumphs and victories, went over to Poictou,