" But he
was much enraged; he imprisoned the relatives of the fugitive bishops,
and announced himself ready to drive every priest who should obey the
interdict out of the kingdom, to be maintained, as he said, by the Pope.
The Archdeacon of Norwich experienced his cruelty for consulting with
his brethren on enforcing it. The Angevin soldiers seized him, and
soldered on his neck a cope of lead, so that he perished in prison under
its weight, and from hunger.
Afterward, however, some terror seized on John, and he ordered his
officers to allow the bishops enough to provide them two dishes of meat
each day, while the secular clergy were to receive as much as should be
adjudged needful for their support by four sworn men of their parish.
Moreover, the man who, by word or deed, abused any of the clergy, should
forthwith be hanged upon an oak!
The Pope followed up his interdict by excommunicating John, and
absolving his subjects from their oaths of allegiance, but a strict
watch was kept on the ports, and no one seems ever to have dared to lay
the bull before the King. However, its existence was well known, and
rendered John very uneasy. He wished to hear what his fate was to be,
and his half-brother, William Longsword, brought him a hermit, named
Peter of Wakefield, who told him he would wear his crown no longer than
next Ascension Day.
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