delay the hoped-for Crusade. But he gradually turned the leaders of the French clergy from their support of Philip, and at last, in February 1200, an interdict was pronounced forbidding the public celebration of the rites of the Church in the whole lands that owed obedience to the King of France. [Sidenote: The Interdict over France, 1200–1201.] Philip Augustus held out fiercely for a time, declaring that he would rather lose half his lands than be separated from Agnes. Meanwhile he used pressure on his bishops to make them disregard the interdict, and vigorously intrigued with the Cardinals, seeking to build up a French party in the papal curia. Innocent so far showed complacency that the legate he sent to France was the king’s kinsman, Octavian, Cardinal-bishop of Ostia, who was anxious to make Philip’s humiliation as light as possible. His labours were eased by the partial submission of Philip, who in September visited Ingeborg, and promised to take her again as his wife, and so gave an excuse to end the interdict. Philip still claimed that his marriage should be dissolved; though here again he suddenly abandoned a suit which he probably saw was hopeless. [Sidenote: Partial submission of Philip, 1201.] The death of Agnes of Meran in July 1201 made a complete reconciliation less difficult. Next year the Pope legitimated the children of Agnes and Philip, on the ground that the sentence of divorce, pronounced by the French bishops, gave the king reasonable grounds for entering in good faith on his union with her. Ingeborg was still refused the rights of a queen, and constantly besought the Pope to have pity on her forlorn condition. The Pope was now forced to content himself with remonstrances. Philip declared that a baleful charm separated him from Ingeborg, and again begged the Pope to divorce him from a union, based on sorcery and witchcraft. The growing need of the French alliance now somewhat slackened the early zeal of Innocent for the cause of the queen. But no real cordiality was possible as long as the strained relations of Ingeborg and Philip continued. [Sidenote: Restitution of Ingeborg, 1213.] At last in 1213, in the very crisis of his fortunes, Philip completed his tardy reconciliation with his wife, after they had been separated for twenty years. Henceforth Philip was the most active ally of the Papacy. [Sidenote: The feudal overlordship of the Papacy over Portugal, Aragon, and England.]