(2): Canonical Election.

The charter, granted to the church on 21st November, 1214, had been reissued on 15th January. Its tenor may be given in three words, “freedom of election.” In all cathedral and conventual churches and monasteries, the appointment of prelates was to be free from royal intervention for the future, provided always that licence to fill the vacancy had first been asked of the King. The bishops present at Runnymede succeeded in having this concession inserted in the very forefront of Magna Carta.

Henry III. in his reissues was made to repeat the phrase quod Anglicana ecclesia libera sit, but omitted all reference alike to canonical election and to John’s charters to the church. With the Pope’s connivance or support, he reduced the rights of cathedral chapters to the sinecure they had been before 1215. It is true that Henry was prone to lean on the papal arm, and that the Curia at Rome rather than the Curia Regis often dominated appointments to vacant sees: the canons elected the nominee of king or pope, as each was, for the moment, in the ascendant. In spite of Magna Carta, the independence of the English church retrograded during the long alliance between Henry III. and successive occupants of the papal throne.