CHAPTER IV.

KING EDWARD AND THE POPE.

In a previous chapter, we promised to tell of a famous letter written by one of our greatest kings to the Pope of his day.  Let us then introduce this interesting historical incident without further preamble or delay.

The King of whom we are about to speak is King Edward III., who reigned over this land for more than fifty years, that is to say, from 1327 to 1377.  The historian Hume tells us that, in general estimation, his reign was not only one of the longest, but that it was considered also “one of the most glorious that occurs in the annals of our nation” (vol. ii., p. 297).  It is important to remember, further, that Edward was no timid weakling, ready to yield to others through weakness or fear.  Quite the contrary.  He was strong, war-like, and courageous.  Hume informs us that “he curbed the licentiousness of the great; that he made his foremost nobles feel his power, and that they dared not even murmur against it, and that his valour and conduct made his knights and warriors successful in most of their enterprises” (id., p. 497).  Yet, in spite of his strong, independent and man-like character—­or shall we not rather say because of it?—­he ever showed himself to be a most loyal child of the Catholic Church.  He considered it no indication of weakness to acknowledge the spiritual supremacy and jurisdiction of the Sovereign Pontiff, and to subscribe himself as a most obedient son of the Vicar of Jesus Christ, as we shall now proceed to prove, in spite of all the frogs and jackdaws that the Bishop of London appeals to as witnesses to the contrary.

Now, it so fell out that, in the second decade of his reign, certain persons, with perhaps more zeal than discretion, began to lodge sundry complaints against the King.  They carried stories to Rome, and sought to prejudice the Pope, Benedict XII., against King Edward.  In the course of time the King got wind of what was going on, and found that the suspicions of the Pope had been raised against him.  Now, what did Edward do?  If he had been a modern Anglican, he would have snapped his fingers at the Pope.  Forgetful of Our Lord’s words, “Unless you become as little children you shall not enter the Kingdom of heaven,” he would have proudly declared that no Pope or foreign Bishop could claim any jurisdiction in England, for that he himself was, in his own realm, the supreme authority in things ecclesiastical as well as in things temporal.  Such would have been the natural and obvious course for him to have taken.  That is to say had he been a modern Anglican.  But since he was not a modern Anglican, but a genuine Roman Catholic to his very backbone, like all the rest of his kingdom, he did not act in that imperious, off-hand way, but was very much distressed and concerned, as a loving son would be, who had incurred the displeasure of a generous father.  Finally, in the thirteenth year of his reign, that is to say, in 1339, he determined to address a letter to the Sovereign Pontiff, firstly to protest against these accusations, secondly to assure the Pope of his innocence, and thirdly to beg him to take no notice of those who had been calumniating him.