European politics.
In the ever-recurring contest between the Papacy and the Empire France had
of old been the lieutenant of the Roman See. But with the settlement at
Avignon the relation changed, and the Pope became the lieutenant of France.
Instead of the Papacy using the French kings in its war of ideas against
the Empire the French kings used the Papacy as an instrument in their
political rivalry with the Emperors. But if the position of the Pope drew
Lewis to the side of England, it had much to do with drawing Edward to the
side of Lewis. It was this that made the alliance, fruitless as it proved
in a military sense, so memorable in its religious results. Hitherto
England had been mainly on the side of the Popes in their strife against
the Emperors. Now that the Pope had become a tool in the hands of a power
which was to be its great enemy, the country was driven to close alliances
with the Empire and to an evergrowing alienation from the Roman See. In
Scotch affairs the hostility of the Popes had been steady and vexatious
ever since Edward the First's time, and from the moment that this fresh
struggle commenced they again showed their French partizanship. When Lewis
made a last appeal for peace, Philip of Valois made Benedict XII. lay down
as a condition that the Emperor should form no alliance with an enemy of
France. The quarrel of both England and Germany with the Papacy at once
grew ripe. The German Diet met to declare that the Imperial power came from
God alone, and that the choice of an Emperor needed no Papal confirmation,
while Benedict replied by a formal excommunication of Lewis. England on the
other hand entered on a religious revolution when she stood hand in hand
with an excommunicated power. It was significant that though worship ceased
in Flanders on the Pope's interdict, the English priests who were brought
over set the interdict at nought.

[Sidenote: Failure of the Alliance]

The negotiation of this alliance occupied the whole of 1337; it ended in a
promise of the Emperor on payment of 3000 gold florins to furnish two
thousand men-at-arms. In the opening of 1338 an attack of Philip on the
Agenois forced Edward into open war. His profuse expenditure however
brought little fruit. Though Edward crossed to Antwerp in the summer, the
year was spent in negotiations with the princes of the Lower Rhine and in
an interview with the Emperor at Coblentz, where Lewis appointed him
Vicar-General of the Empe