n
of priests and prelates; and he required admittance as the first
and highest peer in the realm. During two days the king rejected his
application: but sensible, either that this affair might be attended
with dangerous consequences, or that in his impatience he had
groundlessly accused the primate of malversation in his office, which
seems really to have been the case, he at last permitted him to take his
seat, and was reconciled to him.[**]

* Ang. Sacra, vol i. p. 27.

** Ang. Sacra, p. 28, 39, 40, 41.

Edward now found himself in a bad situation, both with his own people
and with foreign states; and it required all his genius and capacity to
extricate himself from such multiplied difficulties and embarrassments.
His unjust and exorbitant claims on France and Scotland had engaged him
in an implacable war with those two kingdoms, his nearest neighbors: he
had lost almost all his foreign alliances by his irregular payments: he
was deeply involved in debts, for which he owed a consuming interest:
his military operations had vanished into smoke; and, except his naval
victory, none of them had been attended even with glory or renown,
either to himself or to the nation: the animosity between him and the
clergy was open and declared: the people were discontented on account of
many arbitrary measures, in which he had been engaged, and what was more
dangerous, the nobility, taking advantage of his present necessities,
were determined to retrench his power, and by encroaching on the ancient
prerogatives of the crown, to acquire to themselves independence
and authority. But the aspiring genius of Edward, which had so far
transported him beyond the bounds of discretion, proved at last
sufficient to reinstate him in his former authority, and finally to
render his reign the most triumphant that is to be met with in English
story; though for the present he was obliged, with some loss of honor,
to yield to the current which bore so strongly against him.

The parliament framed an act which was likely to produce considerable
innovations in the government. They premised, that, whereas the Great
Charter had, to the manifest peril and slander of the king and damage
of his people, been violated in many points, particularly by the
imprisonment of freemen and the seizure of their goods, without suit,
indictment, or trial, it was necessary to confirm it anew, and to
oblige all the chief officers of the law, together with the st