John was obdurate: proposal after proposal was made, offer after offer; letter followed letter, embassy followed embassy. John seized the possessions of the convent of Christ Church and threatened to wreak vengeance on the monks. Then the Pope answered threat with threat: if John did not receive the archbishop the kingdom must be laid under interdict. It would then be unlawful to perform the services of the Church, the dead would be unburied, the sacraments would cease to be administered, or would be celebrated only in private; the people would be forced by the want of spiritual necessaries to compel the king to compliance. Still he held out, and in March 1208 the interdict was proclaimed. He then declared that he would be avenged on the bishops; many of them fled, and he seized their lands. Again, after a while, negotiations were resumed. Langton came to Dover to meet the king, but John would not face him. The Pope threatened personal excommunication; if that were not effective, it should be followed by a Bull of deposition and the absolution of the English from their obedience. If that were done, the execution of the sentence would be committed to one who would be only too glad to add England to his dominions, and to gratify the hatred that he had nursed for so many years, even to Philip of France, the conqueror of Normandy and Anjou. [Sidenote: John’s obduracy.] For a long time John showed himself impenetrable. He was quite content that his people should be deprived of the sacraments, that the clergy should be exiled, that the whole administration of the country should be paralyzed, almost as it had been in the days of Stephen. Even the terrors of personal excommunication had been too lavishly used of late to make much impression, for Philip had thriven under the anger of Innocent, and John had at this very moment his nephew, the Emperor Otho, a partner in the tribulation. The threat of deposition might be a mere threat; it would be very strange if the Pope should prefer the King of France to the King of England; and, if he did, John had a great army and fleet and treasure. [Sidenote: Persistence of Innocent. ] [Sidenote: Panic of John. ]