The king at once met it with resistance.

When Innocent consecrated the new Primate in June 1207, and threatened the realm with interdict if Langton were any longer excluded from his see, John replied by a counter-threat that the interdict should be followed by the banishment of the clergy and the mutilation of every Italian he could seize in the realm.

How little he feared the priesthood he showed when the clergy refused his demand of a thirteenth of movables from the whole country and Archbishop Geoffry of York resisted the tax before the Council.

John banished the Archbishop and extorted the money.
Innocent however was not a man to draw back from his purpose, and in March 1208 the interdict he had threatened fell upon the land.

All worship save that of a few privileged orders, all administration of Sacraments save that of private baptism, ceased over the length and breadth of the country: the church-bells were silent, the dead lay unburied on the ground.