It has been said that three men struck telling blows at the Roman hierarchy: Philip the fourth, John Wiclif and Martin Luther: a Frenchman, an Englishman and a German. The first opened the way for the other two. Philip IV. called the fair, that is the handsome, was the greatest of the Capetien kings, but his greatness was intellectual only. If he contributed largely to lead mankind out of the bog of superstition in which they were swamped, he did it simply to gratify his own rapacity and ambition. He was the first monarch to challenge the Church to a combat à outrance; and he succeeded in leading her captive literally as well as figuratively. It is useless to try, as some quasi historians do, to explain the career of Wiclif without taking into consideration the state of the Church at that epoch; and if the reader is not informed on that point, he will not profit much by this essay till he has read, marked, learned and inwardly digested the previous one on the Captivity of Babylon. Cotemporary with Philip IV. was Edward I. of England. The two were pretty evenly matched. Edward was probably the better soldier; but in his negotiations with Philip, the advantage remained to the latter. Edward married for his second wife Philip’s sister; and Edward’s son married Philip’s daughter. It was this last marriage that caused the hundred years war. Edward’s grandfather king John, one of the basest of monarchs, had been compelled by his barons, to accept the Great Charter and solemnly to swear to observe it. He appealed to the pope Innocent III. to release him from that oath, and the pontiff consented on condition that John should cede to him in fee the kingdom of England and receive it back in tenancy as a fief of the Holy See, subject to an annual tribute of money as token of vassalage. The bargain was consummated: John was empowered to violate his oath, and his Holiness became Lord paramount of England. He received the tribute in silver and gold during the life of John and during the long reign of his son Henry III. the father of Edward. But when he, Edward, came to the throne he resolved not to be outdone by his incomparable brother-in-law, and refused to continue the tribute. The pope, Boniface VIII., did not follow up the claim with his usual tenacity. Perhaps because he already had his hands full with Philip; and perhaps because there supervened between him and Edward a negotiation of a different character. Edward at the head of an army, was pursuing his claim to the crown of Scotland. The Scotch appealed to the pope giving him a correct history of the transactions between the two kingdoms, by which the independence of Scotland was fully recognised. Boniface ordered Edward to withdraw his troops, alleging that Scotland belonged to him, Boniface--a new pretence little to the taste of the Scotch themselves. Edward denied the Scotch version, and told the pope that the English monarchy was founded by Brutus