He did not, however, confine himself, as Peckham had done, simply to an ecclesiastical policy; for he took a leading part in various attempts to diminish the power of the Crown, and sought to secure a separate position for the Church, with the Pope instead of the king as her ruler, by allying himself with the party of opposition. Edward was forced to yield to the political demands made upon him; but he successfully maintained the rights of the Crown over the Church, and punished the archbishop for the part he had taken against him. The clergy equally with the laity had to bear their share of the national burdens; the claims of Rome were defeated, and the parliament set out on the course of resistance to the papal usurpations which found its completion in the sixteenth century. [Sidenote: Archbishop Kilwardby, 1273; res. 1278.] [Sidenote: Archbishop Peckham, 1279-1292.] During the early years of Edward's reign matters went on smoothly between the Church and the Crown. Gregory X. was the king's friend, and had accompanied him on his crusade; and his chief adviser and chancellor was Robert Burnell, a churchman of great ability and wisdom, who thoroughly understood how to forward his master's ecclesiastical policy. Before Edward became king he had endeavoured to prevail on the monks of Christ Church to elect Burnell to succeed Archbishop Boniface. Nevertheless they chose another as archbishop; the king refused his assent to the election, and Gregory, to put an end to the vacancy, appointed Robert Kilwardby, a Dominican friar. Kilwardby, however, was by no means sufficiently vigorous in asserting the rights of the Church to satisfy Nicolas III., and allowed the privileges of the clergy in matters of jurisdiction to be curtailed by statute. Nicolas accordingly raised him to the cardinalate in 1278, called him to Rome, and thus forced him to resign the archbishopric. Edward secured the election of his friend and minister, Burnell, then bishop of Bath and Wells, and urged the Pope to confirm it. He was again foiled; for Nicolas, after causing inquiries to be made as to the fitness of the archbishop-elect, informed the king that he could not assent to his request, and appointed John Peckham, the provincial of the English Franciscans, laying down the rule that, as the death of a prelate at Rome had long been held to give the Pope the right of appointing a successor, a resignation, which was, he declared, an analogous event, had the same effect.