uperstition itself any longer to control
them. They also foresaw, that the thunders of Rome, when not seconded
by the efforts of the English ecclesiastics, would be of small avail
against them; and they perceived that the most considerable of the
prelates, as well as all the inferior clergy, professed the highest
approbation of their cause. Besides that these men were seized with
the national passion for laws and liberty, blessings of which they
themselves expected to partake, there concurred very powerful causes
to loosen their devoted attachment to the apostolic see. It appeared
from the late usurpations of the Roman pontiff, that he pretended to
reap alone all the advantages accruing from that victory which, under
his banners, though at their own peril, they had every where obtained
over the civil magistrate. The pope assumed a despotic power over all
the churches: their particular customs, privileges, and immunities,
were treated with disdain: even the canons of general councils were
set aside by his dispensing power: the whole administration of the
church was centered in the court of Rome: all preferments ran of
course in the same channel: and the provincial clergy saw, at least
felt, that there was a necessity for limiting these pretensions. The
legate, Nicholas, in filling those numerous vacancies which had fallen
in England during an interdict of six years, had proceeded in the most
arbitrary manner; and had paid no regard, in conferring dignities, to
personal merit, to rank, to the inclination of the electors, or to the
customs of the country. The English church was universally disgusted;
and Langton himself, though he owed his elevation to an encroachment
of the Romish see, was no sooner established in his high office than
he became jealous of the privileges annexed to it, and formed
attachments with the country subjected to his jurisdiction. These
causes, though they opened slowly the eyes of men, failed not to
produce their effect: they set bounds to the usurpations of the
papacy: the tide first stopped, and then turned against the sovereign
pontiff: and it is otherwise inconceivable how that age, so prone to
superstition, and so sunk in ignorance, or rather so devoted to a
spurious erudition, could have escaped falling into an absolute and
total slavery under the court of Rome.

[MN 1215. Insurrection of the barons.]
About the time that the pope's letters arrived in England, the
malecontent barons,