On the morning of the 15th of May the king rose early and went to the church of the Templars at Dover; a great crowd had already assembled there, and John, kneeling and clasping the hand of the legate in his own, swore in a loud clear voice an oath of allegiance to the Holy See. At the same time he placed in the hands of the pontiff's ambassador a document declaring that he, John, king of England and Ireland, in expiation of his sins against God and the Holy Church, without being constrained thereto by force or by the fear of the interdict, but of his own free will and with the consent of his barons, ceded to the Holy Pope Innocent and to his heirs and successors forever, the kingdom of England and dependency of Ireland, to be held by himself John and by his successors as a fief of the Holy Church, by paying an annual sum of a thousand marks of silver. {208} At the same time the king offered a purse as an earnest of his submission. Pandulph threw it on the ground, trampling the money disdainfully under foot, but he accepted the crown which John had relinquished, and for five days it remained in his keeping. The feast of the Ascension had passed,--the king caused the Hermit of Wakefield to be tied to the tail of an untamed horse as a punishment for his predictions; but the people maintained that Peter had not been mistaken, because King John himself gave up his crown. Scarcely had the legate accomplished his mission in England when he recrossed the sea to Philip's camp at Boulogne, announcing to the latter that the states of his enemy would for the future form part of the dominions of St. Peter, and that the King of France no longer had permission to invade them. "But," said Philip, "I have spent enormous sums of money in the preparations for war at the Pope's bidding, and on his having granted remission of my sins." He resolved to carry on the expedition, and was preparing to set sail, when a quarrel with the Count of Flanders caused him to turn his arms in that direction. The English fleet came to the assistance of the Count, and gained a brilliant victory over the vessels of Philip, who, finding himself deprived of the means of transport and revictualling, was obliged to renounce, for the time being, his expedition against England. {209}