In the often-told drama of the challenge to universal papal claims by the emerging ‘nation–states’ of the west it is Philip the Fair and his agents who hold the centre-stage, first with Boniface VIII, and later, by contrast, with Clement V. The king of England and the archbishop of Canterbury play relatively minor rôles in this story of bitter confrontation and papal submission. But it would be misleading to see the events and issues which embroiled Archbishop Winchelsey with Edward I and Edward II as a sub-plot to the main, Franco-papal, struggle. The conflict is a separate and largely independent drama, changed, certainly, by relations with France and by new papal decrees and new papal policies, but developing, in essentials, from the primary concern of all parties with local traditions and rights, whether of the English Crown or of the English clergy. Fundamental questions about the ultimate control of Church property and the allegiance of churchmen lie at the heart of the Franco-papal dispute, and they undoubtedly form, too, the backdrop to the story to be told here; but our eyes must be fixed not so much upon the Roman Church, with its legislative autonomy and its claims of overriding authority, as upon English conditions and English customs. This is, as we shall see, in no way to deny the outstanding importance of the papacy for England, or of England for the papacy. It is simply to insist that the study of the defence of the English Church's liberty and the study of the political career of Robert Winchelsey must begin and end in England.