These wars had but afforded still further opportunities for the King’s rapacity; from which every class in the kingdom was now suffering. Those classes even which John had hitherto somewhat spared now felt the pressure. There was a universal persecution of the Jews, who were all suddenly apprehended, and many of them tortured to declare their wealth. He is said to have extracted 60,000 marks from the race. The clergy too had been obliged to find him £100,000; the Cistercian monks some £30,000, or £40,000, and subsequently, in 1212, another £12,000 was wrung from them, because the chief of the order, acting as Papal Legate, had, during the Albigensian crusade, injured Raymond, the King’s brother-in-law. [Sidenote: League with Northern princes.] While he had been thus, even in the pursuit of national objects, estranging by his tyrannical conduct his own subjects, John had been carrying on his opposition to the Pope outside the limits of the kingdom; and events in Europe were rapidly approaching a crisis. Otho, the Guelphic Emperor, upon the death of his rival, had so completely succeeded, that in 1209 he had been solemnly crowned Emperor in Italy. But no sooner had he gained his object than the inevitable rivalry between Pope and Emperor again arose, and in a few years he had forfeited the Pontiff’s favour so completely as to become the object of his greatest hatred; he had even been excommunicated, while the Pope found a new protegé in the young Frederick of Sicily, whose anti-papal tendencies were not at that time suspected. Similarity of circumstances rendered still closer the bond of union between John and his nephew, and in 1211 a league of excommunicated leaders was formed, including all the princes of the North of Europe; Ferrand of Flanders, the Duke of Brabant, John, and Otho, were all members of it, and it was chiefly organized by the activity of Reinald of Dammartin, Count of Boulogne. The chief enemy of most of these confederates was Philip of France; and John thought he saw in this league the means of revenge against his old enemy. [Sidenote: John is deposed 1213.] [Sidenote: Surrender of the crown to the Pope.]