good garrison into it, dismissed part of his fleet, which had been principally hired from the Italian states. Roger di Loria, the Arragonese admiral, who durst not attack the French fleet while entire, burnt and destroyed it when divided, seizing all the money and provisions intended for the support of the army: and these losses sunk so deeply into the mind of Philip, that he secretly repassed the Pyrennees, and died a few days after at Perpignan3.

A. D. 1285.

Philip III. was the first French monarch who granted letters of nobility, which he bestowed on Ralph the Goldsmith. In so doing, he only restored the ancient constitution of the Franks; who, being all of one blood, were esteemed equally noble, and alike capable of the highest offices. The notion of a particular and distinct noblesse took its rise towards the close of the second race, when many of the officers of the crown had usurped, and converted into hereditary dignities, the offices and juris. dictions which they received from royal favour*.

The reign of Philip IV. surnamed the Fair, the son and successor of Philip the Hardy, forms an era in the history of France, by the civil and political regulations. to which it gave birth; the institution of the supreme tribunals, called Parliaments, and the formal admission of the commons, or third estate, into the general assemblies of the nation. How the French commons came afterwards to be excluded from these assemblies, we shall have occasion to see in the course of our narration.

The first care of Philip was to compose all differences with his neighbours, as he found his finances exhausted: and this he was enabled to effect by the mediation of Edward I. of England, against whom he afterwards ungenerously commenced hostilities, while that monarch was engaged in a war with Scotland. Philip also attempted, at the expense of much blood and treasure, to seize the country of Flanders, which had leagued with

3. Nag. Chran.

4. Henault. tom. i.

England.

England. But as these wars were neither distinguished by any remarkable event, nor followed by any conse quence that altered the state of either country, I shall proceed to the transactions between Philip and the see of Rome, and the extinction of the order of Knights Templars.

Pope Boniface VIII. of whose arrogance I have already had occasion to speak, prohibited the clergy in general from granting any aids or subsidies to princes without his leave. Philip IV. who was no less haughty than his holiness, and very needy, thought the clergy, as being the richest order of the state, ought to contribute to the wants of the crown, when the situation of afairs made it necessary, and without any application to Rome; he therefore encountered the pope's bull by an edict, forbidding any of the French clergy to send money abroad without the royal permission. This was the first cause of the famous quarrel between Boniface and Philip; and the insolence of a bishop of Pamiers threw things into a still greater ferment.

A. D. 1303.

This man, named Bernard Saissetti, who had rebelled against the king in his diocese, was appointed by Boniface legate to the French court. An obnoxious subject thus invested with a dignity, which, according to the see of Rome, made him equal to the sovereign himself, came to Paris and braved Philip, threatening his kingdom with an interdict. layman, who had behaved in such a manner, would have been punished with death, but the person of a churchman was sacred; and Philip was satisfied with delivering this incendiary into the hands of his metropolitan, the archbishop of Narbonne, not daring to treat him as a criminal.

A

Pope Boniface, enraged at the confinement of his legate, issued a bull, declaring, "That the vicar of Christ is "vested with full authority over the kings and kingdoms "of the earth:" and the clergy of France received, at the same time, an order from his holiness to repair to Rome.

A

A French archdeacon carried this bull, and these orders to the king; commanding him under pain of excommunication, to acknowledge the pope as his temporal sovereign. This insolence was answered with a moderation little suited to the character of Philip. He contented himself with ordering the pope's bull to be thrown into the fire, and prohibiting the bishops from departing the kingdom. Forty of them, however, with many of the heads of religious orders, went to Rome, notwithstanding the king's prohibition. For this trespass he seized all their temporalities.

While Boniface and his council were considering the conduct of Philip, and by means of his confessor brought his most secret thoughts under review, that politic prince assembled the states of his kingdom. They acknowledged his independent right to the sovereignty of France, and disavowed the pope's claim. It was on this occasion, that the representatives of cities were first regularly summoned to the national assembly5.

Philip was now at full liberty to treat the pope as an open enemy. He accordingly leagued with the family of Colonna, and sent William de Dogaret, a celebrated lawyer, into Italy, with a sum of money, in order to raise troops. A body of desperadoes were suddenly and secretly collected, with which William and Sciarra Colonna surprised Boniface at Anagni, a town in his own territories, and the place of his birth, exclaiming, "Let the 66 pope die! and long live the king of France!" Boniface, however, did not lose his courage. He dressed himself in his cope, put the tiara upon his head: and, holding the keys in one hand, and the cross in the other, presented himself with an air of majesty before his conquerors. On this occcasion, it is said, Sciarra had the brutality to strike him, crying out, "Tyrant! renounce "the pontificate, which thou hast dishonoured."-" I "am pope," replied Boniface, with a look of intrepidity,

5. Henault, ubi sup. Du Chesne. Folyd. Virg.

VOL. I.

30

"and

" and I will die pope!" This gallant behaviour had such an effect on the minds of the inhabitants, that they rose against his enemies, and rescued him from their hands. But Boniface was so much affected by the indignities which had been offered him, that he died in a few days.

On the death of Boniface, the cardinals elected Nicholas Boccacini, who took the name of Benedict XI. He was a mild and good man; and being desirous of using his power for the promoting of peace, he revoked the sentence of excommunication, which his predecessor had fulminated against Philip the Fair. He also pardoned the Colonnas; and shewed a great disposition to reform that corruption which had spread itself through the dominions of the church. But these proceedings, so notorious in themselves, excited the hatred of his licentious and vindictive countrymen, who suddenly took him off by poison. He was succeeded by Clement V. who being a Frenchman, and entirely in the interest of Philip, fixed his residence in France. By means of this pope the ▲. D. 1308. French monarch hoped to have obtained the empire for his brother, Charles of Valois, and actually re-united the city of Lyons to his

A. D. 1305.

A.

A. D. 1310.

kingdom".

But although this was justly considered as a great acquisition, Philip had occasion for the assistance of Clement in an affair that lay nearer his heart. I allude to the suppression of the order of Knights Templars. That religious and military order, which took its rise, as has been already observed, during the first fervour of the crusades, had made rapid advances in credit and authority; and had acquired, from the piety of the faithful, ample possessions in every Christian country, but more especially in France. The great riches of those

6. A. Baillet, Hist. de Demelez du Boniface VIII, avec Philip le Bel. 7. Trivet. Annal. Hist.Menitr. Conc. de Lyons.

knights

knights, and other concurring causes, had, however, relaxed the severity of their discipline. Convinced by experience, by fatigues, and by dangers, of the folly of their fruitless expeditions into Asia, they chose rather to enjoy in ease their opulent fortunes in Europe; and being all men of birth, they scorned the ignoble occupations of a monastic life, and passed their time wholly in the fashionable amusements of hunting, gallantry, and the pleasures of the table. By these means the Templars had in a great measure lost that popularity, which first raised them to honour and distinction. But the immediate cause of their destruction proceeded from the cruel and vindictive spirit of Philip the Fair.

The severity of the taxes, and the mal-administration of Philip and his council in regard to the coin, which they had repeatedly altered in its value, occasioned a sedition in Paris. The Knights Templars were accused of being concerned in the tumult. They were rich, as has been observed; and Philip was no less. avaricious than vindictive. He determined to involve the whole order in one undistinguished ruin; and on no better information than that of two knights, condemned by their superiors to perpetual imprisonment for their vices, he ordered all the Templars in France to be committed to prison, on one day, and imputed to them such enormous and absurd crimes, as are sufficient of themselves to destroy all the credit of the accusation. They were universally charged with murder, robbery, and the vices most shocking to nature; and it was pretended that every one whom they received into their order was obliged to renounce his Saviour, to spit upon the cross, and to join to this impiety the superstition of worshipping a gilded head, which was secretly kept in one of their houses at Marseilles. The novice was also said to be initiated by many infamous rites, which could serve no other purpose but to degrade the order in his eyes: and, as Voltaire very justly observes, it shews a very indifferent knowledge of mankind, to sup

pose