Salisbury performed this service with so much success that he took three hundred ships; destroyed a hundred more;[*] and Philip, finding it impossible to prevent the rest from falling into the hands of the enemy, set fire to them himself, and thereby rendered it impossible for him to proceed any farther in his enterprise.
John, exulting in his present security, insensible to his past disgrace, was so elated with this success, that he thought of no less than invading France in his turn, and recovering all those provinces which the prosperous arms of Philip had formerly ravished from him.

He proposed this expedition to the barons, who were already assembled for the defence of the kingdom.

But the English nobles both hated and despised their prince: they prognosticated no success to any enterprise conducted by a such a leader: and, pretending that their time of service was elapsed, and all their previsions exhausted, they refused to second his undertaking.[**] The king, however, resolute in his purpose, embarked with a few followers, and sailed to Jersey, in the foolish expectation that the barons would at last be ashamed to stay behind.[***] But finding himself disappointed, he returned to England; and raising some troops, threatened to take vengeance on all his nobles for their desertion and disobedience.

The archbishop of Canterbury, who was in a confederacy with the barons here interposed; strictly inhibited the king from thinking of such an attempt; and threatened him with a renewal of the sentence of excommunication if he pretended to levy war upon any of his subjects before the kingdom were freed from the sentence of interdict.[****] [* M.Paris, p.166.Chron.Dunst.vci i.p.

59.
Trivet, p.