Shame indeed there must be in any loss of independence, but in this less than any, and with Rome the shame of submission had already been incurred.

But whatever were the king's thoughts his act was decisive.

On the 15th of May 1213 he knelt before the legate Pandulf, surrendered his kingdom to the Roman See, took it back again as a tributary vassal, swore fealty and did liege homage to the Pope.
[Sidenote: Its Results] In after times men believed that England thrilled at the news with a sense of national shame such as she had never felt before.

"He has become the Pope's man" the whole country was said to have murmured; "he has forfeited the very name of king; from a free man he has degraded himself into a serf." But this was the belief of a time still to come when the rapid growth of national feeling which this step and its issues did more than anything to foster made men look back on the scene between John and Pandulf as a national dishonour.

We see little trace of such a feeling in the contemporary accounts of the time.