Page:The history of medieval Europe.djvu/510

This page needs to be proofread.

4 6o THE HISTORY OF MEDIEVAL EUROPE 1213. The English king remained the vassal of the pope, but the king's vassals in England had forced their sovereign to limit his power over them and to admit them to a share in the government, and neither pope nor king had been able to stop them. Innocent had triumphed over the weak personality of John; he had not conquered the English nation. Moreover, Innocent's victory over John was partly due to the fact that the latter had already been so humiliated Intractabil- °y P^ U P Augustus, who had destroyed most of] ity of Philip the Blaalageftet power on the Continent. Thus, while the English king was weakened for a time, the French monarch kept increasing his power. And he did not become a vassal of the pope. On the contrary, his rela- tions with the pope in temporal matters were far from satis- factory to Innocent, although the king always displayed aj sufficient outward respect for the Church and for religion. Philip conquered Normandy despite papal threats, he re- peatedly refused to join the crusade against the Albigen- sians, he allied with the anti-papal party in Germany, and he allowed his son to invade England and aid the barons whom the pope had excommunicated. In only one matter can Innocent be said to have forced his will upon Philip, and that was a case where the king had Divorce case clearly been in the wrong. No sooner had he of ingeborg married Ingeborg of Denmark, a beautiful and of Denmark ....... pure girl of eighteen, in 1193, than for some un- explained reason he secured the assent of the French clergy to a divorce and married again. Ingeborg appealed to Rome and then for twenty years threats, negotiations, excommunications, pretended reconciliations with, and re- newed separations from, and imprisonments of poor Inge- borg succeeded one another. Finally, in 12 13, when about to invade England as the pope's ally, Philip gave in and restored Ingeborg to her rightful place as queen, which she retained for the rest of the reign, and in his will he left a large sum of money to his "dearest wife." From Innocent's relations with the English and French