And when they were passed they were, as we have abundantly seen, either employed, or neglected, or the infringements of them condoned, exactly as might suit the convenience of the King or his minister for the time being. The clergy were a very powerful, sometimes the most powerful, body in the State, and it became the interests of the other three parties—the Crown, the Baronage, and the Commons—to enlist them on their own side; while they themselves, on their part, held a divided allegiance. They owed a duty to the Crown and another to the Papacy; and when the two were incompatible, their choice between them was likely to be governed by a more or less enlightened regard to their own corporate interests; and though, as we have seen, these were divided, yet they were probably less so than those of any other party, because their separating interests were those of a few great corporate bodies rather than those of families or individuals. The instances given above of the oaths taken by the primates to the King and the Pope respectively, and of the diverse interpretations given by different primates to the conflicting terms of these oaths, may serve as a good instance of all the three points which I wish to insist upon in regard to the papal power in England, for they show, (1) that the allegiance of the clergy throughout this period was in England, as elsewhere, a divided allegiance; (2) that this division remained a very real and important one even through the period of papal depression; and (3) that its inclination to one side or the other differed from time to time in accordance with the varying circumstances of the times, and with the differing interests, characters, dispositions, and abilities of the kings, the popes, and the prelates concerned.
