The most dreaded terror in the Papal armoury—an interdict—was placed on the land. The churches were closed, no bell rang for prayers, all rites were withheld from the people, and even the dead lay in unconsecrated ground. But John was not yet brought to his knees; he seized the goods and lands of the Church, and then Innocent in wrath cast him out of its pale. Still John was unsubdued; he plundered the Church even more remorselessly. He treated the Jews as a money-sucking sponge, squeezing them by every conceivable cruelty until they gave up their wealth. One rich Jew, so the story goes, was forced to disgorge by the simple process of having a tooth drawn every day until he had to choose between his remaining molars and his money bags. Others were starved in cages fastened to castle walls until their spirit of resistance was broken. Military success did not fail the wicked king at this crisis. He compelled William the Lion of Scotland to do homage and pay heavy tribute, and he did the only really good work of his life in Ireland. From that country, which had been destined as his principality, John had been driven in the lifetime of his father by an onslaught of the Irish chiefs, whom he had abominably insulted and goaded into rebellion. Now he returned, and made short work of them and of the quarrelsome Anglo-Normans. He pacified the distracted land, made good laws, appointed capable officers, and sailed home in triumph. Then he turned his victorious arms against his son-in-law, Llewellyn, and forced the Welsh prince to do homage in the midst of his mountain fastnesses. And all the time John snapped his fingers at the Pope. Innocent’s patience being now well-nigh exhausted, he sent to England his legate Pandulf, who solemnly declared John’s subjects free of their oath of fealty. But most of the nobles and many of the more worldly clergy still stuck to John, and his hired troops feared neither Pope nor devil. So John still held out, and even began to win the goodwill of his subjects by regulating the seaport trade, and by pardoning offenders against the barbarous forest laws of the time. Now came the Pope’s final sentence—John was to be hurled from the throne, and another and a worthier king should reign in his stead.