Flanders, from marrying his daughter to the son of Edward I. of England,
he invited her and her father to his court, and threw them both into
prison, while he offered his own daughter Isabel to Edward of Carnarvon
in her stead. The Scottish wars prevented Edward I. from taking up the
cause of Guy; but the Pope, Boniface VIII., a man of a fierce temper,
though of a great age, loudly called on Philip to do justice to
Flanders, and likewise blamed in unmeasured terms his exactions from the
clergy, his debasement of the coinage, and his foul and vicious life.
Furious abuse passed on both sides. Philip availed himself of a flaw in
the Pope's election to threaten him with deposition, and in return was
excommunicated. He then sent a French knight named William de Nogaret,
with Sciarra Colonna, a turbulent Roman, the hereditary enemy of
Boniface, and a band of savage mercenary soldiers to Anagni, where the
Pope then was, to force him to recall the sentence, apparently intending
them to act like the murderers of Becket. The old man's dignity,
however, overawed them at the moment, and they retired without laying
hands on him, but the shock he had undergone caused his death a few days
later. His successor was poisoned almost immediately on his election,
being known to be adverse to Philip. Parties were equally balanced in
the conclave; but Philip's friends advised him to buy over to his
interest one of his supposed foes, whom they would then unite in
choosing. Bertrand de Goth, Archbishop of Bordeaux, was the man, and in
a secret interview promised Philip to fulfil six conditions if he were
made Pope by his interest. These were: 1st, the reconciliation of Philip
with the Church; 2nd, that of his agents; 3rd, a grant to the king of a
tenth of all clerical property for five years; 4th, the restoration of
the Colonna family to Rome; 5th, the censure of Boniface's memory. These
five were carried out by Clement V., as he called himself, as soon as he
was on the Papal throne; the sixth remained a secret, but was probably
the destruction of the Knights Templars. This order of military monks