Arthur was the rightful Count of Anjou, and Anjou and Brittany held by him. In the war that followed Arthur was taken prisoner, and no more was heard of him, The rumour spread, and was generally believed, that he was murdered by his uncle; some say, with John’s own hands. Philip of France, as John’s feudal lord, called upon him to answer the charge of murdering his nephew; and as John paid no attention to the summons, Philip made war upon him and took from him all his possessions north of the Loire. John had now only his mother’s lands, Gascony and part of Aquitaine. In this way the kings of England lost Normandy, Maine and Anjou. Now that most of their French possessions were gone, the kings of England paid more attention to the wants and wishes of the English people. English men and English money were not, henceforth, so liable to be taken abroad to be used in their king’s foreign quarrels.
10. John quarrels with the Pope.—Not content with murdering his nephew, John must needs plunder and torture his own subjects. No class of his people was free from his insults and outrages. He kept in his pay a large number of foreigners, who fought his battles and helped him to put at defiance his barons. The Church, too, felt his heavy hand, for clergy and laity alike were victims of his greed and brutality. When Hubert, the Archbishop of Canterbury died, some of the monks of Canterbury secretly chose his successor. John, when it came to his ears, was greatly enraged and had another one chosen. The matter came before Pope Innocent III. and he put both choices aside, and induced the monks to elect Stephen Langton, a man of great learning and worth, at that time living at Rome. But John would not allow Langton to come to England. Then in 1208 the Pope placed the land under an ‘‘Interdict,” that is he forbade the Clergy to marry the people in the Church, or to bury their dead. For four years the churches were closed, and their dead were buried in ditches and fields. But John cared for none of those things. He took his revenge by robbing and murdering the clergy, using for this purpose his hired foreign troops. One outrage followed another until the Pope called upon Philip of France to invade England and take the throne from John. This Philip proceeded to do; but John, at last greatly alarmed, placed his crown and kingdom at the
