A.D. 1297. CONFERENCE ON* THE STATE OF THE CHURCH. 523 which, had been given by the king. And all the property of the archbishop, both moveable and otherwise, was taken possession of for the king's use. He, indeed, endured this patiently. Therefore, while the clergy were suffering, as I have here related, in body, the king himself suffered in mind. And fear and grief seized all the prelates ; for they were in the greatest perplexity, fearing that if they granted any thing, they would, by so doing, incur sentence of excommunication ; and if they did not give, they would not be able to escape the merciless hands of the robbers. Worn out with this anxiety, anxious for themselves, and inconsolably afflicted on account of the flock committed to them, as having no means of support, while they were thus threatened with famine, they necessarily determined to return to the world, procuring the king's protection by a sacrifice of their property to a great extent. And immediately after these events some ambassadors returned from Guienne, bringing word that in a certain battle which had taken place between the English and French, which begun towards evening, the people of Guienne fled, and the English cavalry, left to resist by itself, was surrounded by the enemy ; of whom .the commander of the army, John Saint John, was taken prisoner, with others of his comrades, to the number of twelve, and led to Paris, amid the applause of the French, as formerly the Philistines exulted over Samson. On the day of Saint Matthias the Apostle, the nobles of the kingdom assembled in the city of Salisbury, and the king proposed to send some of them to the succour of his people in Guienne. Which the barons cheerfully consented, on condition that the king himself would cross the sea with them in his own person at the same time. But he did not do so. The king the channel crossing o'er, Lands welcome on the Flemish shore. A.D . 1297. The archbishop of Canterbury and some of his suffragan bishops being assembled at Saint Paul's, in London, on the twenty-sixth of March, to consult a second time about the state of the church, immediately two lawyers rose up, and also two members of the order of Preaching Brothers, seeking to win the temporal favour of the king, and endeavouring to prove by specious arguments that the clergy might lawfully be called on to contribute out of their property for the service of the king in time of war, any prohibition of