Note 241 — PART IV. HISTORICAL SEQUEL TO MAGNA CARTA.

These alterations show traces of some influence at work hostile to the national Church. Not only is the promise of canonical election withdrawn, but the omissions of the clauses regulating intestate succession and guaranteeing freedom to leave the kingdom (a privilege highly valued by the clergy) seem to prejudice the interests of English churchmen. Now the papal legate was an active supporter of the re-issue of this Charter in 1216; whereas Rome, in the crisis of June, 1215, had been bitterly opposed to the original grant of Magna Carta. The inference is that Rome did not protest against these omissions to the prejudice of the English Church. Why was this? The explanation probably lies in the divergence of the interests of the national Church from those of the Church universal. Canonical election, for example, was nothing to Rome; successive Popes made provision for their favourites more readily in England by bringing pressure to bear on the King than on the monks of the various chapters. Henry III. habitually acted on the omission; creating wide-felt discontent by filling the English sees partly with his own foreign favourites, and partly with ecclesiastics nominated by the Roman Curia. The King and the Pope thus entered into a tacit partnership for their mutual benefit at the expense of the English national Church.