against the exaction, and fell dead as he was speaking. Two years
later, the King more imperiously demanded it, and Archbishop
Winchelsey wrote to the Bishop of London (Gravesend) commanding him to
summon the whole of the London clergy to St. Paul's to protest, and to
publish the famous Bull, "clericis laicos," of Pope Boniface VIII.,
which forbade any emperor, king, or prince to tax the clergy without
express leave of the Pope. Any layman who exacted, or any cleric who
paid, was at once excommunicate. Boniface, who had been pope two
years, put forward far more arrogant pretensions than Gregory or
Innocent had done, but times were changed. The Kings of England and
France were at once in opposition. The latter (Philip IV.) was more
cautious than his English neighbour, and in the uncompromising
struggle between king and pope, the latter died of grief at defeat,
and his successor was compelled, besides making other concessions, to
remove the papal residence from Rome to Avignon, where it continued
for seventy years, the popes being French nominees. King Edward, with
some trouble, got his money, but promised to repay it when the war was
over, and the clergy succeeded in wresting some additional privileges
from him, which they afterwards used to advantage.

We pass over the unhappy reign of Edward II., only noting that the
Bishop of Exeter, Stapylton, who was ruling for him in London, was
dragged out of St. Paul's, where he had taken sanctuary, and beheaded
in Cheapside. He was the founder of Exeter College, Oxford.

The exile of the popes to Avignon, so far from diminishing their
rapacity, increased it, if possible, and Green shows that the immense
outlay on their grand palace there caused the passing of the Statute
of Provisors in 1350, for the purpose of stopping the incessant
draining away of English wealth to the papacy. During that