rescued in 1267 by the king's son, afterwards Edward I. There was already in his day a powerful
French party in the Church, and his election was opposed by the French cardinals. He came into
violent conflict with the French king Philip IV, on the question whether the king had the right to
tax the French clergy. Boniface was addicted to nepotism and avarice; he therefore wished to
retain control over as many sources of revenue as possible. He was accused of heresy, probably
with justice; it seems that he was an Averroist and did not believe in immortality. His quarrel with
the King of France became so bitter that the king sent a force to arrest him, with a view to his
being deposed by a General Council. He was caught at Anagni, but escaped to Rome, where he
died. After this, for a long time, no pope ventured to oppose the King of France.
After a very brief intermediate reign, the cardinals in 1305 elected the archbishop of Bordeaux,
who took the name of Clement V. He was a Gascon, and consistently represented the French party
in the Church. Throughout his pontificate he never went to Italy. He was crowned in Lyons, and in
1309 he settled in Avignon, where the popes remained for about seventy years. Clement V
signalized his alliance with the king of France by their joint action against the Templars. Both
needed money, the Pope because he was addicted to favouritism and nepotism, Philip for the
English war, the Flemish revolt, and the costs of an increasingly energetic government. After he
had plundered the bankers of Lombardy, and persecuted the Jews to the limit of "what the traffic
would bear," it occurred to him that the Templars, in addition to being bankers, had immense
landed estates in France, which, with the Pope's help, he might acquire. It was therefore arranged
that the Church should discover that the Templars had fallen into heresy, and that king and pope
should share the spoils. On a given day in 1307, all the leading Templars in France were arrested;
a list of leading questions, previously drawn up, was put to them all; under torture, they confessed
that they had done homage to Satan and committed various other abominations; at last, in 1313,
the Pope suppressed the order, and all its property was confiscated. The best account of this
proceeding is in Henry C. Lea's History of the Inquisition, where, after full investigation, the
conclusion is reached that the charges against the Templars were wholly without foundation.