of the government and the weakness of the king surrendered everything
to the pope. It was soon as it had been in the days of Henry III., when
pope and king combined to despoil the English Church.

The suppression of the order of the Temple shows how absolutely England
was forced to follow in the wake of the papacy and the King of France.
There was no spontaneous movement against the society as in France;
there was not even the fierce malice and insatiable greed which could
find their only satisfaction in the ruin of the brethren; and there is
not much evidence that the Templars were unpopular. The whole attack
was the result of commands given from without. It was at the repeated
request of Philip of France and Clement V. that Edward reluctantly
ordered the apprehension of all the Templars within England, Scotland,
and Ireland on January 8, 1308. Their property was taken into the
king's hands, and their persons were confined in the royal prisons
under the custody of the sheriffs. For their trial, Clement appointed a
mixed commission including Winchelsea, Archbishop Greenfield of York,
several English bishops, one French bishop, and certain papal
inquisitors specially assigned for the purpose, the chief of whom were
the Abbot of Lagny and Sicard de Lavaur, Canon of Narbonne, who came to
England in 1309. At last the victims were collected at London and York,
where the trials were to be conducted for the southern and northern
provinces. There was much hesitation among the English bishops. The
foes of the Templars lamented the prelates' lack of zeal and their
scruples in collecting evidence, and suggested that the torture, which
had so freely been used in France, would soon extract confessions. But
the northern bishops declared that torture was unknown in England, and
asked, if it were to be adopted, whether it was to be applied by clerks
or laymen, and whether torturers should be imported from beyond sea. In
the end, torture was used, but not to any great extent.