te had
averted a conflict between the national desire for self-government and the
Papal claims of overlordship. But his death gave the signal for a more
serious struggle, for it was in the oppression of the Church of England by
the Popes through the reign of Henry that the little rift first opened
which was destined to widen into the gulf that parted the one from the
other at the Reformation. In the mediaeval theory of the Papacy, as
Innocent and his successors held it, Christendom, as a spiritual realm of
which the Popes were the head, took the feudal form of the secular realms
which lay within its pale. The Pope was its sovereign, the Bishops were his
barons, and the clergy were his under vassals. As the king demanded aids
and subsidies in case of need from his liegemen, so in the theory of Rome
might the head of the Church demand aid in need from the priesthood. And at
this moment the need of the Popes was sore. Rome had plunged into her
desperate conflict with the Emperor, Frederick the Second, and was looking
everywhere for the means of recruiting her drained exchequer. On England
she believed herself to have more than a spiritual claim for support. She
regarded the kingdom as a vassal kingdom, and as bound to aid its overlord.
It was only by the promise of a heavy subsidy that Henry in 1229 could buy
the Papal confirmation of Langton's successor. But the baronage was of
other mind than Henry as to this claim of overlordship, and the demand of
an aid to Rome from the laity was at once rejected by them. Her spiritual
claim over the allegiance of the clergy however remained to fall back upon,
and the clergy were in the Pope's hand. Gregory the Ninth had already
claimed for the Papal See a right of nomination to some prebends in each
cathedral church; he now demanded a tithe of all the moveables of the
priesthood, and a threat of excommunication silenced their murmurs.
Exaction followed exaction as the needs of the Papal treasury grew greater.
The very rights of lay patrons were set aside, and under the name of
"reserves" presentations to English benefices were sold in the Papal
market, while Italian clergy were quartered on the best livings of the
Church.

[Sidenote: Fall of Hubert de Burgh]

The general indignation at last found vent in a wide conspiracy. In 1231
letters from "the whole body of those who prefer to die rather than be
ruined by the Romans" were scattered over the kingdom by armed men; tithes
gather