Series 1 > Statutes of the Scottish Church, 1225-1559

xxxii STATUTES OF THE SCOTTISH CHURCH
to take action in the troublesome case of the status of the
Scottish church.
The question of synodical assembly was meanwhile com¬
plicated by a more difficult one. As we have seen, King
Alexander petitioned in 1221 that he might be crowned by
a legate of the Holy See, not unnaturally persuaded that the
moment was propitious. King Alexander had been intimately
associated with the Archbishop of Canterbury and the English
barons in the struggle that secured Magna Charta, while at
the same time English relations with Rome were far from
cordial. Since near the beginning of the reign of Henry m.,
from 1220 onwards, the English nation had been strenuously
engaged in throwing off the humiliating tutelage of the
Popes to which John had, in 1213, subjected it. Archbishop
Langton had, in 1221, secured the recall of the papal legate
who had in galling fashion ruled England as a papal fief, and
a succession of papal demands had been summarily rejected.
Alexander might have hoped that his services to the English
national cause at home would make English opposition to his
requests at Rome less bitter than heretofore; and he might
at least fairly expect that the Pope would be less willing to
defer to English jealousy of Scottish aspirations.
But England proved still a lion in the path of the Scots.
The Pope saw himself compelled to refuse Alexander’s petition
unless the King of England and his bishops could be got to
assent—a rather hopeless condition. When the same petition
came before another Pope in 1233, it was the Archbishop of
York who expressly argued that the desired favour would be
an encroachment on the rights and privileges of the see of
York as well as of the English crown.
The petition of the Scottish bishops for powers to carry out
the Lateran decree as to provincial councils irrespective of
York was clearly open to the same criticism from the jealous
archbishop, but on the whole stood on a different footing and
was otherwise answered. As might have been expected.