So strong a king, so determinate a policy, was sure to provoke complaints; the very enforcement of order wears the appearance of oppression. Both clergy and laity had their grievances, and Edward’s extremity gave them their opportunity. The clergy with a certain number of bishops at their head, had throughout the struggles of the century ranged themselves on the side of liberty. The inferior clergy had always had much in common with the people, and John’s conduct during the Interdict had broken the alliance which ever since the Norman Conquest had subsisted between the great prelates and the court. Stephen Langton had set an example which was bravely followed. Henry III., by his love of foreigners, his obsequious behaviour to the popes, and his unscrupulous dealings in money matters alienated the national Church almost as widely as John had done; while Simon de Montfort had conciliated all that was good and holy. But when Henry III. with the abuses which he had maintained, had passed away, and when Church and nation alike saw that Edward was laboring for the benefit of his people with all his heart, matters might have been changed. There was doubtless need for watchfulness on the part of the clergy, for the ministers of the court were always on the lookout for means to limit the spiritual power; but defensive watchfulness is a different thing from aggression. Three successive archbishops had ruled since Edward’s accession, all of them anxious to promote the independence of the Church and to diminish the power of the crown, even if it were to be done by throwing the Church more entirely into the hands of the Pope. Hence it was that Archbishop Peckham in 1279 had declared himself the champion of the Great Charter, although the Great Charter was not assailed, and had in a council at Reading passed several canons which were intended to limit the king’s action in ecclesiastical causes. Edward in return had taken his opportunity of repressing what seemed to him to be ecclesiastical innovation; he had interfered to prevent the publication of the canons, and had made the archbishop apologize and withdraw them. Not content with this, he took advantage of the occasion to pass the statute “De Religiosis,” by which he prevented the clergy from acquiring more land than they held at the time, without express permission. The taxation of the clergy too was heavy; the popes were as willing to minister to Edward’s needs as they had been to supply his father with money from the revenues of the English Church. More than once they had empowered him to collect a three years tenth of all the revenue of the clergy for the purpose of a crusade which was never carried out, and in 1288 Pope Nicolas IV. ordered a new and very exact valuation of all church property. This valuation included both temporal property, that is land, and spiritual, that is tithes and offerings. Such a permanent record laid them open at any moment to exaction. But