Immediately on his accession, Edward II. recalled Winchelsey, and imprisoned his father's minister, Walter Langton. The resistance to papal exactions was renewed in a parliament held at Stamford in 1309, where the king gave his consent to a petition presented by the lay estates for the reformation of civil abuses. At this parliament the barons sent a letter of complaint to the Pope of much the same character as the document drawn up at Carlisle. Clement, by way of answer, complained that his collectors were impeded, that his briefs and citations were not respected, that laymen exercised jurisdiction over spiritual persons, and that the tribute granted by John to the See of Rome had not been paid for some fifteen years. Here the matter seems to have ended, and the chief features of our Church history during this wretched reign are closely connected with the quarrels and general disorganization that prevailed in the kingdom. For a time Winchelsey acted with the king, but Edward's carelessness and evil government drove him into opposition. While the country at large had much to complain of, the Church had her special grievances. In 1309 the archbishop held a provincial council to decide on proceedings against the Templars; for the king had promised the Pope that the English Church should take part in attacking the Order. At this council gravamina were adopted which show that constant encroachments were made on the sphere of ecclesiastical jurisdiction. The next year the archbishop and six of his suffragans were chosen as "Ordainers," the name given to a commission appointed by a council of magnates, lay and spiritual, to carry out a system of reform. Winchelsey and the bishops of his province pronounced excommunication against all who hindered the ordinances, or revealed the secrets of the Ordainers. First among the objects which the Ordainers swore to promote was the increase of the honour and welfare of the Church; and the interference with the spiritual courts which had been complained of the year before was forbidden by one of their ordinances. As Winchelsey thus joined the party of opposition, the king, in 1312, released Langton, and appointed him treasurer; for, in spite of all that had passed, the old servant of Edward I. upheld the cause of the Crown. The earl of Lancaster, the head of the opposition, seems to have been regarded as favourable to the claims of the Church; for in 1316, when he had virtually obtained the complete control of the kingdom, the estate of the clergy presented, in a parliament held at Lincoln, a series of complaints called "Articuli Cleri." The royal assent was given, and the "articles" became a statute. By these articles the rules laid down in the writ "Circumspecte agatis" were re-enacted, and various rights and liberties, touching matters of jurisdiction and sanctuary, were acknowledged. Among these, it was allowed that it pertained to a spiritual, and not to any temporal judge, to