whereupon the clergy appealed to the Pope, contending that their aids were due to Rome alone.
The same struggle was proceeding at the same time upon the continent. Boniface had begun his pontificate by calling on the monarchs of Europe to settle their differences by referring them to his arbitrament. The sincerity of this plausible injunction may be measured by the fact that he was soon offering, for his own purposes, to dethrone the Emperor Albert and to give his crown to Charles of Valois. In this and other matters the Pope laid himself open to the suspicion that his aim was not so much to maintain peace in Christendom as to fish in troubled waters.
The trial of strength between Boniface and Philip endured throughout the seven years of that fatal pontificate. The first blow was struck by Boniface, who in peremptory language required the French and English kings to abstain from laying any taxations whatever upon the clergy. This was not the only form of papal interference, but it aggravated and governed all the rest. The challenge was unmistakable, and Philip took it up at once. He refused to obey the Pope, who then issued his bull Clericis laicos, declaring in general terms, for the benefit of Philip, Edward, and anyone else whom it might concern, that monarchs had no right to exact taxes or aids from the clergy, even in the shape of voluntary grants, without the sanction of the Holy Father. Philip's answer was to prohibit the export of gold, silver, precious stones, food, and the munitions of war—a prohibition which of course included
