Prohibition
withdrawn.
Appeals
eluded and
evaded.
Appeals
under
Henry III.
362 Constitutional History. [chap,
forced to abandon the evil customs embodied in the Constitu-
tions, he was made to swear in a special clause that he would
not impede nor allow others to impede the free exercise of the
right of appeals in ecclesiastical causes, provided that the ap-
pellants might, if they were suspected, be called upon to give
security that they would not seek to harm the king or the
kingdom1. But although the king was thus obliged to sur-
render one of the most important of the points for which he
had contended, and to allow, as the later records of his reign
show, constant reference to the pope in cases which the national
church was competent to decide, he was able to limit the
appeals to strictly ecclesiastical questions, in some cases to
defeat the purpose of the appellants, and in others to avoid
giving formal recognition to the decisions of the foreign court.
In the two famous causes of the next reign, that of the monks
of Canterbury against archbishop Hubert, and that of the
election of Giraldus Cambrensis to S. David’s, the king relied
rather on the means which he took to persuade or force the
appellants to withdraw the appeal, than on any constitutional
right to prohibit it ; and in the Canterbury case Bichard I
showed no small skill in prevailing on the parties to accept
an arbitration even when the Roman legate was waiting to
determine the appeal2. The church history of the thirteenth
century, after the collapse of John’s attempt to resist In-
nocent III, is full of appeals. Falkes de Breauté appealed
against his outlawry and banishment ; archbishops Richard and
Edmund appealed against their monks ; almost every new bishop
had to fight a battle at Rome before he could obtain his see ;
Henry III himself, although constantly putting forward, as a
special privilege of England, that all ecclesiastical suits should
be finally decided within the confines of England, more than
once sought in a papal sentence of absolution a release from the
solemn obligations by which he had bound himself to his people.
With the reign of law which was restored under his son, who
insisted on the same privilege of England, the practice was
1 Hoveden, ɪɪ. 33 ; Eened. i. 32.
2 Epistolae Cantuarienses, pp. 322∙ 323∙
XiX.] Appeats to Rome. 363
discouraged and restricted but not forbidden ; its exercise was improve-
. . , , ment under
limited by the certainty that in most cases safer and cheaper Edward ι.
justice could be found at home. Yet appeals did not cease, and
the custom of seeking dispensations, faculties and privileges in
matrimonial and clerical causes, increased. Archbishop Win-
chelsey had a suit with the monks of S. Augustine’s which
lasted for eight years1. Even the statutes of praemunire did
not prevent the suing for justice in the papal court, in causes θf pra≡u∙
for which the English common law provided no remedy. But
from the date of this legislation this particular practice became
less historically important : the collusion, so to call it, between
the crown and the papacy, as to the observance of the statute
of provisors, extended also to the other dealings with the Curia.
No attempt was made to prevent the sale of dispensations, and Diminution
when an appeal was carried to Rome, and the Pope had on bet and im-
x x , , . . . portance of
the usual plan appointed judges-αelegate to hear the parties in causes re-
England, the Royal veto was rarely if ever interposed. Probably Rome,
however such appeals were not numerous, and, in comparison
with the sums raised by dispensations, the pecuniary results
were inconsiderable. Still so great was the influence which the
Roman court possessed in all political and social matters, that
every bishop had his accredited agent at Rome, and by presents
and pensions had to secure the good offices of the several
cardinals and other prelates. It is a pitiful thing to read Ketwork
the letters of Archbishop Chichele to the great ecclesiastics litigation,
of the pontifical court, or to trace in those of bishop Peckington
the paltry intrigues which determined the action of the supreme
tribunal of Christendom. In the fifteenth century, notwith-
standing the bold policy of Martin V and the somewhat sub-
missive attitude of the Lancaster kings, the direct influence
exerted by the papacy in legal proceedings in England had
become very small : questions which had once been bitterly
contested had become matters of compromise ; the papal juris-
diction in minor matters had become a thing of course, and in
1 Prynne, Eecords, iii. 836. See also a form of appeal by Godfrey
bishop of Worcester against archbishop Peckham ; Thomas, Worcester,
App. p. 38 ; and cases of appeal mentioned in the Rolls of Parliament,
i. 50, 20S ; ii. 82,