Philip of Swabia, the rival of Otho the Guelph, the Papal candidate for the throne of Germany, and proceeded to consecrate the new archbishop with his own hands at Viterbo. [Sidenote: John’s violence.] [Sidenote: Interdict and flight of bishops. 1208.] [Sidenote: Excommunication. 1209.] John had already quarrelled with the bishops, because they had refused, at a council held at St. Albans, to give him a contribution which he had required, for the assistance of this same Otho, who was his nephew. The news therefore of the consecration at Viterbo at once moved him to violence. The monks of Canterbury were driven from their monastery, and when, in the following year, an interdict which the Pope had intrusted to the Bishops of London, Ely and Worcester, was published, his hostility to the Church became so extreme, that almost all the bishops fled; the Bishops of Winchester, Durham and Norwich, two of whom belonged to the ministerial body, being the only prelates left in England. The interdict was of the severest form; all services of the Church, with the exception of Baptism and extreme unction, being forbidden, while the burial of the dead was allowed only in unconsecrated ground; its effect was however weakened by the conduct of some of the monastic orders, who claimed exemption from its operation, and continued their services. The King’s anger knew no bounds. The clergy were put beyond the protection of the law; orders were issued to drive them from their benefices, and lawless acts committed at their expense met with no punishment. While publishing the interdict, the Pope had threatened still further measures, and the King, conscious of his unpopularity among the barons, sought to secure himself from the effects of the threatened excommunication by seizing their sons as hostages. Nevertheless, though acting thus violently, John showed the weakness of his character by continued communication with the Pope, and occasional fitful acts of favour to the Church; so much so, that, in the following year, Langton prepared to come over to England, and upon the continued obstinacy of the King, Innocent, feeling sure of his final victory, did not shrink from issuing his threatened excommunication. John had hoped to be able to exclude the knowledge of this step from the island, as his father Henry had done; but the rumour of it soon got abroad, and its effect was great. The fidelity even of the ministers was shaken, and one of them rose from the council table, asserting that it was unsafe for a beneficed clergyman any longer to hold intercourse with the excommunicated King. [Sidenote: Attack on the other insular nations, Scotland.]