Immediately all the rest of the provinces which he held on the continent, except a part of Guienne, despairing of his protection, and abhorring his government, threw themselves into the hands of Philip. Meanwhile the king by his personal vices completed the odium which he had acquired by the impotent violence of his government. Uxorious and yet dissolute in his manners, he made no scruple frequently to violate the wives and daughters of his nobility, that rock on which tyranny has so often split. Other acts of irregular power, in their greatest excesses, still retain the characters of sovereign authority; but here the vices of the prince intrude into the families of the subject, and, whilst they aggravate the oppression, lower the character of the oppressor. In the disposition which all these causes had concurred universally to diffuse, the slightest motion in his kingdom threatened the most dangerous consequences. Those things which in quiet times would have only raised a slight controversy, now, when the minds of men were exasperated and inflamed, were capable of affording matter to the greatest revolutions. The affairs of the Church, the winds which mostly governed the fluctuating people, were to be regarded with the utmost attention. Above all, the person who filled the see of Canterbury, which stood on a level with the throne itself, was a matter of the last importance. Just at this critical time died Hubert, archbishop of that see, a man who had a large share in procuring the crown for John, and in weakening its authority by his acts at the ceremony of the coronation, as well as by his subsequent conduct. Immediately on the death of this prelate, a cabal of obscure monks, of the Abbey of St. Augustin, assemble by night, and first binding themselves by a solemn oath not to divulge their proceedings, until they should be confirmed by the Pope, they elect one Reginald, their sub-prior, Archbishop of Canterbury. The person elected immediately crossed the seas; but his vanity soon discovered the secret of his greatness. The king received the news of this transaction with surprise and indignation. Provoked at such a contempt of his authority, he fell severely on the monastery, no less surprised than himself at the clandestine proceeding of some of its members. But the sounder part pacified him in some measure by their submission. They elected a person recommended by the king, and sent fourteen of the most respectable of their body to Rome, to pray that the former proceedings should be annulled, and the later and more regular confirmed. To this matter of contention another was added. A dispute had long subsisted between the suffragan bishops of the province of Canterbury and the monks of the Abbey of St. Austin, each claiming a right to elect the metropolitan. This dispute was now revived, and pursued with much vigor. The pretensions of the three contending parties were laid before the Pope, to whom such disputes were highly pleasing,