early Simon had learned to sympathize with the Bishop in his resistance to
Rome, and at the crisis of the contest he offered him his own support and
that of his associates. But Robert passed away, and as the tide of
misgovernment mounted higher and higher the Earl silently trained himself
for the day of trial. The fruit of his self-discipline was seen when the
crisis came. While other men wavered and faltered and fell away, the
enthusiastic love of the people clung to the grave, stern soldier who
"stood like a pillar," unshaken by promise or threat or fear of death, by
the oath he had sworn.


[Sidenote: Matthew Paris]

While Simon had been warring with Gascon rebels affairs in England had been
going from bad to worse. The scourge of Papal taxation fell heavier on the
clergy. After vain appeals to Rome and to the king, Archbishop Edmund
retired to an exile of despair at Pontigny, and tax-gatherer after
tax-gatherer with powers of excommunication, suspension from orders, and
presentation to benefices, descended on the unhappy priesthood. The
wholesale pillage kindled a wide spirit of resistance. Oxford gave the
signal by hunting a Papal legate out of the city amid cries of "usurer" and
"simoniac" from the mob of students. Fulk Fitz-Warenne in the name of the
barons bade a Papal collector begone out of England. "If you tarry here
three days longer," he added, "you and your company shall be cut to
pieces." For a time Henry himself was swept away by the tide of national
indignation. Letters from the king, the nobles, and the prelates, protested
against the Papal exactions, and orders were given that no money should be
exported from the realm. But the threat of interdict soon drove Henry back
on a policy of spoliation in which he went hand in hand with Rome. The
temper which this oppression begot among even the most sober churchmen has