Innocent IV., who was chiefly guilty of these proceedings, was engaged in a long struggle with Frederick II. of Germany, respecting the kingdom of the two Sicilies, and the Guelf and Ghibelline struggle forever raging in Italy, and it was this apparently remote quarrel which was in reality the cause of the oppression and simony that so cruelly affected England.
The English bitterly hated the foreign clergy, and quarrels were forever breaking out. When Otho, the legate, was passing through Oxford, and lodging at Osney Abbey, a terrible fray occurred. The students, a strange, wild set, came to pay him their respects; but his porter, being afraid of them, kept them out, and an Irish priest, pressing forward to beg for food, had some scalding water thrown in his face by the clerk of the kitchen, the brother of the legate, who, used to Italian treachery, entrusted to no one the care of his food. A fiery Welsh scholar shot the legate's brother dead with an arrow, and a great riot ensued. Otho locked, himself up in the church-tower till night, then fled, through floods of rain, hunted by the students, all yelling abuse, and getting before him to the fords, so that the poor man had to swim the river five times, and came half dead to the King at Abingdon. Next morning the scene was changed. Earl Warenne and his bowmen came down upon Oxford, forty of the rioters were carried off in carts like felons, interdicts and excommunications fell on the university, and only when doctors, scholars, and all came barefoot to ask the legate's pardon, was the anger of the Pope appeased.
Moreover, there was a widespread confederation among the gentry against these Italians, and rioters arose and plundered their barns, distributing the corn to the poor.
Walter do Cantilupe, the young Norman Bishop of Worcester, was thought to be among those in the secret, and the outrages grew more serious when an Italian canon of St. Paul's was seized and impressed by five men in masks. Des Roches, the Bishop of Winchester, who had returned home, and was very jealous of Hubert de Burgh, thought this a fit time for overthrowing him, and publicly accused him of being in the plot. A young knight, Sir Robert Twenge, came forward and confessed that he had been the leader of the rioters under the name of Will Wither, and that the good old justiciary had nothing to do with them. He was sent to do penance at Rome, and Hubert's enemies continued their machinations.
Henry and his Queen were tired of the sage counsels of the brave knight, and open to all Des Roches' insinuations, forgetting the wise though punning warning of the wonderful Franciscan friar, Roger Bacon, who told Henry there was nothing so dangerous in a voyage as "_les Pierres et les Roches_." At Christmas, the Bishop invited them to Winchester, and there his sumptuous banquets and splendid amusements won the King's frivolous heart, and obtained his consent to dismiss Hubert from all his offices, even from the government of Dover, which he had saved. Soon after orders were sent forth for his arrest, that he might be tried for the disturbances against the Italians, and likewise for having seduced the King's affections by sorcery and witchcraft.
Hubert placed his wealth in the care of the Templars, and took sanctuary in the church of Merton, in Surrey; but the Mayor of London was ordered to dislodge him, and the whole rabble of the city were setting forth, when the Archbishop and Earl of Chester represented the scandal to the King, and obtained letters of protection for him until the time for his trial, January, 1233. Trusting to these letters, he set out to visit his wife at Bury, but at Brentwood was waylaid by a set of ruffians called the Black Band, and sent by the Bishop of Winchester. He retreated into the church, but they dragged him from the very steps of the altar, and called a blacksmith to chain his feet together.
"No, indeed," said the brave peasant, "never will I forge fetters for the deliverer of my country."
However, he was led into London with his feet chained under his horse. There the Bishop of London, threatening excommunication for the sacrilege, forced his enemies to return him to Brentwood church, which, however, they closely blockaded till hunger forced him to deliver himself up to them.
He bought his life by giving up his treasures, and was imprisoned at Devizes. Shortly this castle was given to Des Roches; and De Burgh, who knew by experience how the change of castellane often brought death to the captive, sought to escape. He gained over two of his guards, who carried him to the parish church, for he was too heavily ironed to walk, and there laid him down before the altar. They could take him no further, and the warden of the castle cruelly beat him, and brought him back; but, as before, the Bishop maintained the privileges of the sanctuary, and forced the persecutors to restore him, and though he was again hemmed in there by the sheriff, before he was starved out a party of his friends came to his rescue, and he was carried off to the Welsh hills, there remaining till recalled by the influence of the Archbishop. He was restored to his honors, and though he once again had to suffer from Henry's fickleness and the rapacity of his court, his old age was peaceful and honored, as befitted his unsullied fame.
This Archbishop was Edmund Rich, who had been elected in 1232, after two short-lived primates had succeeded Langton. He was of a wealthy family at Abingdon, and had been brought up entirely by an excellent mother, his father having retired into a monastery. His whole childhood had been a preparation for holy orders, and when he went to study at Oxford, he led a life of the strictest self-denial, inflicting on himself all the rigorous discipline which he hoped would conduce to a saintly life. When he had become a teacher in his turn, such was his contempt for money, that, when his pupils paid him, he would sprinkle it with dust, and say, "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust," and would let it lie in the window, without heeding whether any was stolen. When, shortly after, made treasurer of Salisbury, he kept an empty dish by his side at meals, and put into it what he denied himself, sending it afterward by his almoner to the sick poor. He was a constant reader of the Scriptures day and night, always kissing the holy volume before commencing, and thus he derived the judgment and firmness which enabled him to battle with the evils of his day.
Gifts were especially held in scorn and contempt by him. He was wont to say, that between _prendre_ and _pendre_ there was but one letter's difference; and in a court so full of corrupt and grasping clergy, this gave him untold power.
Peter des Roches was the head of these, representing King John's former policy, and uniting himself with the young Gascon relations of the King, who were wont to say, "What are English laws to us?"
The family of Pembroke, Earls Marshal of England, were especially obnoxious to this party, as resolute supporters of Magna Charta, and of much power and influence. William, the eldest son of the late Protector, was married to Eleanor, the King's sister. He died early, and this party tried to deprive his brother Richard of his inheritance; then, when this did not succeed, Des Roches wrote letters in the King's name to some of the Norman-Irish nobles, offering them all his lands in that island, provided they would murder him, ratifying these promises with the great seal.
The assassins stirred up the Irish to attack Pembroke's castles, so as to bring him to Ireland; they then pretended to join with him in putting down the rebellion, and, in the midst, waylaid him, and attacked him while riding with a few attendants. Some of these he ordered at once to convey his young brother to a place of safety, and gallantly defended himself, but his horse was killed, and he was stabbed in the back; his servants, returning, carried him home to his castle, but there the letter purporting to be from the King was shown him, and his grief was so great that he would not permit his wounds to be dressed, and died in a few hours.