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After three years the King appointed to Canterbury the Queen's uncle,
Boniface of Savoy, a man of no clerical habits; but the Queen wrote a
persuasive letter, by which she obtained the consent of Innocent.
So many monstrous demands had been made by the Pope, that, in 1245,
the nobles sent orders to the wardens of the seaports to seize every
despatch coming from Rome, and they soon made prize of a great number of
orders to intrude Italians into Church patronage. Martin, the legate,
complained to the King, who ordered the letters to be produced, but the
barons took the opportunity of laying before the King a statement of the
grievances of the Church of England, 60,000 marks a year being in the
hands of foreigners, while the whole of the royal revenue was but
20,000. Henry could only make helpless lamentations, and, under pretext
of a tournament, the Barons met at Dunstable, and sent a knight to
expostulate with the legate. This envoy threatened him, that if he
remained three days longer in England, his life would not be safe--an
intimation which drove him speedily from the country.
The barons, hearing that the Pope was holding a council at Lyons, sent
deputies thither, with a letter drawn up by the Bishop of Lincoln, so
powerfully enforced by William de Powerie, their spokesman, that the
exposure of the enormities permitted in England called up a deep blush
on the face of Innocent, and he allowed that he had been wrong in
thrusting in these incompetent Italians.
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