and adviser, but his health and his influence declining,
Becket [the Archdeacon of Canterbury] was found apt for
business as well as amusement, and gradually became intrusted
with the exercise of all the powers of the crown. ... The
exact time of his appointment as Chancellor has not been
ascertained, the records of the transfer of the Great Seal not
beginning till a subsequent reign, and old biographers being
always quite careless about dates. But he certainly had this
dignity soon after Henry's accession. ... Becket continued
Chancellor till the year 1162, without any abatement in his
favour with the King, or in the power which he possessed, or
in the energy he displayed, or in the splendour of his career.
... In April, 1161, Archbishop Theobald died. Henry declared
that Becket should succeed,--no doubt counting upon his
co-operation in carrying on the policy hitherto pursued in
checking the encroachments of the clergy and of the see of
Rome. ... The same opinion of Becket's probable conduct was
generally entertained, and a cry was raised that 'the Church
was in danger.' The English bishops sent a representation to
Henry against the appointment, and the electors long refused
to obey his mandate, saying that 'it was indecent that a man
who was rather a soldier than a priest, and who had devoted
himself to hunting and falconry instead of the study of the
Holy Scriptures, should be placed in the chair of St.
Augustine.' ... The universal expectation was, that Becket
would now attempt the part so successfully played by Cardinal
Wolsey in a succeeding age; that, Chancellor and Archbishop,
he would continue the minister and personal friend of the
King; that he would study to support and extend all the
prerogatives of the Crown, which he himself was to exercise;
and that in the palaces of which he was now master he would
live with increased magnificence and luxury. ... Never was
there so wonderful a transformation. Whether from a
predetermined purpose, or from a sudden change of inclination,
he immediately became in every respect an altered man.
{800}
Instead of the stately and fastidious courtier, was seen the
humble and squalid penitent. Next [to] his skin he wore
hair-cloth, populous with vermin; he lived upon roots, and his
drink was water, rendered nauseous by an infusion of fennel.
By way of further penance and mortification, he frequently
inflicted stripes on his naked back. ... He sent the Great
Seal to Henry, in Normandy, with this short message, 'I desire
that you will provide yourself with another Chancellor, as I
find myself hardly sufficient for the duties of one office,
and much less of two.' The fond patron, who had been so eager
for his elevation, was now grievously disappointed and
alarmed. ... He at once saw that he had been deceived in his
choice. ... The grand struggle which the Church was then
making was, that all churchmen should be entirely exempted
from the jurisdiction of the secular courts, whatever crime
they might have committed. ... Henry, thinking that he had a
favourable opportunity for bringing the dispute to a crisis,
summoned an assembly of all the prelates at Westminster, and
himself put to them this plain question: 'Whether they were
willing to submit to the ancient laws and customs of the
kingdom?' Their reply, framed by Becket, was: 'We are willing,
saving our own order.' ... The King, seeing what was
comprehended in the reservation, retired with evident marks of
displeasure, deprived Becket of the government of Eye and
Berkhamstead, and all the appointments which he held at the
pleasure of the Crown, and uttered threats as to seizing the
temporalities of all the bishops, since they would not
acknowledge their allegiance to him as the head of the state.
The legate of Pope Alexander, dreading a breach with so
powerful a prince at so unseasonable a juncture, advised
Becket to submit for the moment; and he with his brethren,
retracting the saving clause, absolutely promised 'to observe
the laws and customs of the kingdom.' To avoid all future
dispute, Henry resolved to follow up his victory by having
these laws and customs, as far as the Church was concerned,
reduced into a code, to be sanctioned by the legislature, and
to be specifically acknowledged by all the bishops. This was
the origin of the famous 'Constitutions of Clarendon.'''
Becket left the kingdom (1164). Several years later he made
peace with Henry and returned to Canterbury; but soon he again
displeased the King, who cried in a rage, 'Who will rid me of
this turbulent priest?' Four knights who were present
immediately went to Canterbury, where they slew the Archbishop
in the cathedral (December 29, 1170). "The government tried to
justify or palliate the murder. The Archbishop of York likened
Thomas à Becket to Pharaoh, who died by the Divine vengeance,
as a punishment for his hardness of heart; and a proclamation
was issued, forbidding anyone to speak of Thomas of Canterbury
as a martyr: but the feelings of men were too strong to be
checked by authority; pieces of linen which had been dipped in
his blood were preserved as relics; from the time of his death
it was believed that miracles were worked at his tomb; thither
flocked hundreds of thousands, in spite of the most violent
threats of punishment; at the end of two years he was
canonised at Rome; and, till the breaking out of the
Reformation, St. Thomas of Canterbury, for pilgrimages and
prayers, was the most distinguished Saint in England."
_Lord Campbell,
Lives of the Lord Chancellors,
chapter 3._
"What did Henry II. propose to do with a clerk who was accused
of a crime? ... Without doing much violence to the text, it is
possible to put two different interpretations upon that famous
clause in the Constitutions of Clarendon which deals with
criminous clerks. ... According to what seems to be the
commonest opinion, we might comment upon this clause in some
such words as these:--Offences of which a clerk may be accused
are of two kinds. They are temporal or they are
ecclesiastical. Under the former head fall murder, robbery,
larceny, rape, and the like; under the latter, incontinence,
heresy, disobedience to superiors, breach of rules relating to
the conduct of divine service, and so forth. If charged with
an offence of the temporal kind, the clerk must stand his
trial in the king's court; his trial, his sentence, will be
like that of a layman. For an ecclesiastical offence, on the
other hand, he will be tried in the court Christian. The king
reserves to his court the right to decide what offences are
temporal, what ecclesiastical; also he asserts the right to
send delegates to supervise the proceedings of the spiritual
tribunals. ... Let us attempt a rival commentary. The author
of this clause is not thinking of two different classes of
offences. The purely ecclesiastical offences are not in
debate. No one doubts that for these a man will be tried in
and punished by the spiritual court. He is thinking of the
grave crimes, of murder and the like. Now every such crime is
a breach of temporal law, and it is also a breach of canon
law. The clerk who commits murder breaks the king's peace, but
he also infringes the divine law, and--no canonist will doubt
this--ought to be degraded. Very well. A clerk is accused of
such a crime. He is summoned before the king's court, and he
is to answer there--let us mark this word respondere--for what
he ought to answer for there. What ought he to answer for
there? The breach of the king's peace and the felony. When he
has answered, ... then, without any trial, he is to be sent to
the ecclesiastical court. In that court he will have to answer
as an ordained clerk accused of homicide, and in that court
there will be a trial (res ibi tractabitur). If the spiritual
court convicts him it will degrade him, and thenceforth the
church must no longer protect him. He will be brought back
into the king's court, ... and having been brought back, no
longer a clerk but a mere layman, he will be sentenced
(probably without any further trial) to the layman's
punishment, death or mutilation. The scheme is this:
accusation and plea in the temporal court; trial, conviction,
degradation, in the ecclesiastical court; sentence in the
temporal court to the layman's punishment. This I believe to
be the meaning of the clause."
_F. W. Maitland,
Henry II. and the Criminous Clerks
(English Historical Review, April, 1892),
pages 224-226._
The Assize of Clarendon, sometimes confused with the
Constitutions of Clarendon, was an important decree approved
two years later. It laid down the principles on which the
administration of justice was to be carried out, in twenty-two
articles drawn up for the use of the judges.
_Mrs. J. R Green,
Henry the Second,
chapters 5-6._
{801}
"It may not be without instruction to remember that the
Constitutions of Clarendon, which Becket spent his life in
opposing, and of which his death procured the suspension, are
now incorporated in the English law, and are regarded, without
a dissentient voice, as among the wisest and most necessary of
English institutions; that the especial point for which he
surrendered his life was not the independence of the clergy
from the encroachments of the Crown, but the personal and now
forgotten question of the superiority of the see of Canterbury
to the see of York."
_A. P. Stanley,
Historical Memorials of Canterbury,
page 124._
ALSO IN:
_W. Stubbs,
Constitutional History of England,
chapter 12, sections 139-141._
_W. Stubbs,
Select Charters,
part 4._
_J. C. Robertson,
Becket._
_J. A. Giles,
Life and Letters of Thomas à Becket._
_R. H. Froude,
History of the Contest between Archbishop
Thomas à Becket and Henry II.
(Remains, part 2, volume 2)._
_J. A. Froude,
Life and Times of Thomas Becket._
_C. H. Pearson,
History of England during the Early and Middle Ages,
volume 1, chapter 29._
See, also,
BENEFIT OF CLERGY,
and JURY, TRIAL BY.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1189.
Accession of King Richard I. (called Cœur de Lion).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1189-1199.
Reign of Richard Cœur de Lion.
His Crusade and campaigns in France.
"The Third Crusade [see CRUSADES: A. D. 1188-1192], undertaken
for the deliverance of Palestine from the disasters brought
upon the Crusaders' Kingdom by Saladin, was the first to be
popular in England. ... Richard joined the Crusade in the very
first year of his reign, and every portion of his subsequent
career was concerned with its consequences. Neither in the
time of William Rufus nor of Stephen had the First or Second
Crusades found England sufficiently settled for such
expeditions. ... But the patronage of the Crusades was a
hereditary distinction in the Angevin family now reigning in
England: they had founded the kingdom of Palestine; Henry II.
himself had often prepared to set out; and Richard was
confidently expected by the great body of his subjects to
redeem the family pledge. ... Wholly inferior in statesmanlike
qualities to his father as he was, the generosity,
munificence, and easy confidence of his character made him an
almost perfect representative of the chivalry of that age. He
was scarcely at all in England, but his fine exploits both by
land and sea have made him deservedly a favourite. The
depreciation of him which is to be found in certain modern
books must in all fairness be considered a little mawkish. A
King who leaves behind him such an example of apparently
reckless, but really prudent valour, of patience under jealous
ill-treatment, and perseverance in the face of extreme
difficulties, shining out as the head of the manhood of his
day, far above the common race of kings and emperors,--such a
man leaves a heritage of example as well as glory, and incites
posterity to noble deeds. His great moral fault was his
conduct to Henry, and for this he was sufficiently punished;
but his parents must each bear their share of the blame. ...
The interest of English affairs during Richard's absence
languishes under the excitement which attends his almost
continuous campaigns. ... Both on the Crusade and in France
Richard was fighting the battle of the House which the English
had very deliberately placed upon its throne; and if the war
was kept off its shores, if the troubles of Stephen's reign
were not allowed to recur, the country had no right to
complain of a taxation or a royal ransom which times of peace
enabled it, after all, to bear tolerably well. ... The great
maritime position of the Plantagenets made these sovereigns
take to the sea."
_M. Burrows,
Commentaries on the History of England,
book 1, chapter 18._
Richard "was a bad king; his great exploits, his military
skill, his splendour and extravagance, his poetical tastes,
his adventurous spirit, do not serve to cloak his entire want
of sympathy, or even consideration for his people. He was no
Englishman. ... His ambition was that of a mere warrior."
_W. Stubbs,
Constitutional History of England,
section. 150 (volume 1)._
ALSO IN:
_K. Norgate,
England under the Angevin Kings,
volume 2, chapter 7-8._
ENGLAND: A. D. 1199.
Accession of King John.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1205.
The loss of Normandy and its effects.
In 1202 Philip Augustus, king of France, summoned John of
England, as Duke of Normandy (therefore the feudal vassal of
the French crown) to appear for trial on certain grave charges
before the august court of the Peers of France. John refused
to obey the summons; his French fiefs were declared forfeited,
and the armies of the French king took possession of them (see
FRANCE: A. D. 1180-1224). This proved to be a lasting
separation of Normandy from England,--except as it was
recovered momentarily long afterwards in the conquests of
Henry V. "The Norman barons had had no choice but between John
and Philip. For the first time since the Conquest there was no
competitor, son, brother, or more distant kinsman, for their
allegiance. John could neither rule nor defend them. Bishops
and barons alike welcomed or speedily accepted their new lord.
The families that had estates on both sides of the Channel
divided into two branches, each of which made terms for
itself; or having balanced their interests in the two
kingdoms, threw in their lot with one or other, and renounced
what they could not save. Almost immediately Normandy settles
down into a quiet province of France. ... For England the
result of the separation was more important still. Even within
the reign of John it became clear that the release of the
barons from their connexion with the continent was all that
was wanted to make them Englishmen. With the last vestiges of
the Norman inheritances vanished the last idea of making
England a feudal kingdom. The Great Charter was won by men who
were maintaining, not the cause of a class, as had been the
case in every civil war since 1070, but the cause of a nation.
From the year 1203 the king stood before the English people
face to face."
_W. Stubbs,
Constitutional History of England,
chapter 12, section 152._
See FRANCE: A. D. 1180-1224.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1205-1213.
King John's quarrel with the Pope and the Church.
On the death, in 1205, of Archbishop Hubert, of Canterbury,
who had long been chief minister of the crown, a complicated
quarrel over the appointment to the vacant see arose between
the monks of the cathedral, the suffragan bishops of the
province, King John, and the powerful Pope Innocent III. Pope
Innocent put forward as his candidate the afterwards famous
Stephen Langton, secured his election in a somewhat irregular
way (A. D. 1207), and consecrated him with his own hands. King
John, bent on filling the primacy with a creature of his own,
resisted the papal action with more fury than discretion, and
proceeded to open war with the whole Church.
{802}
"The monks of Canterbury were driven from their monastery, and
when, in the following year, an interdict which the Pope had
intrusted to the Bishops of London, Ely and Worcester, was
published, his hostility to the Church became so extreme that
almost all the bishops fled; the Bishops of Winchester,
Durham, and Norwich, two of whom belonged to the ministerial
body, being the only prelates left in England. The interdict
was of the severest form; all services of the Church, with the
exception of baptism and extreme unction, being forbidden,
while the burial of the dead was allowed only in unconsecrated
ground; its effect was however, weakened by the conduct of
some of the monastic orders, who claimed exemption from its
operation, and continued their services. The king's anger knew
no bounds. The clergy were put beyond the protection of the
law; orders were issued to drive them from their benefices,
and lawless acts committed at their expense met with no
punishment. ... Though acting thus violently, John showed the
weakness of his character by continued communication with the
Pope, and occasional fitful acts of favour to the Church; so
much so, that, in the following year, Langton prepared to come
over to England, and, upon the continued obstinacy of the
king, Innocent, feeling sure of his final victory, did not
shrink from issuing his threatened excommunication. John had
hoped to be able to exclude the knowledge of this step from
the island ... ; but the rumour of it soon got abroad, and its
effect was great. ... In a state of nervous excitement, and
mistrusting his nobles, the king himself perpetually moved to
and fro in his kingdom, seldom staying more than a few days in
one place. None the less did he continue his old line of policy.
... In 1211 a league of excommunicated leaders was formed,
including all the princes of the North of Europe; Ferrand of
Flanders, the Duke of Brabant, John, and Otho [John's Guelphic
Saxon nephew, who was one of two contestants for the imperial
crown in Germany], were all members of it, and it was chiefly
organized by the activity of Reinald of Dammartin, Count of
Boulogne. The chief enemy of these confederates was Philip of
France; and John thought he saw in this league the means of
revenge against his old enemy. To complete the line of
demarcation between the two parties, Innocent, who was greatly
moved by the description of the disorders and persecutions in
England, declared John's crown forfeited, and intrusted the
carrying out of the sentence to Philip. In 1213 armies were
collected on both sides. Philip was already on the Channel,
and John had assembled a large army on Barhamdown, not far
from Canterbury." But, at the last moment, when the French
king was on the eve of embarking his forces for the invasion
of England, John submitted himself abjectly to Pandulf, the
legate of the Pope. He not only surrendered to all that he had
contended against, but went further, to the most shameful
extreme. "On the 15th of May, at Dover, he formally resigned
the crowns of England and Ireland into the hands of Pandulf,
and received them again as the Pope's feudatory."
_J. F. Bright,
History of England (3d edition),
volume 1, pages 130-134._
ALSO IN:
_C. H. Pearson,
History of England during the Early and Middle Ages,
volume 2, chapter 2._
_E. F. Henderson,
Select Historical Documents of the Middle Ages,
Book 4, number 5._
See, also, BOUVINES, BATTLE OF.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1206-1230.
Attempts of John and Henry III. to recover Anjou and Maine.
See ANJOU: A. D. 1206-1442.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1215.
Magna Carta.
"It is to the victory of Bouvines that England owes her Great
Charter [see BOUVINES]. ... John sailed for Poitou with the
dream of a great victory which should lay Philip [of France]
and the barons alike at his feet. He returned from his defeat
to find the nobles no longer banded together in secret
conspiracies, but openly united in a definite claim of liberty
and law. The author of this great change was the new
Archbishop [Langton] whom Innocent had set on the throne of
Canterbury. ... In a private meeting of the barons at St.
Paul's, he produced the Charter of Henry I., and the
enthusiasm with which it was welcomed showed the sagacity with
which the Primate had chosen his ground for the coming
struggle. All hope, however, hung on the fortunes of the
French campaign; it was the victory at Bouvines that broke the
spell of terror, and within a few days of the king's landing
the barons again met at St. Edmundsbury. ... At Christmas they
presented themselves in arms before the king and preferred their
claim. The few months that followed showed John that he stood
alone in the land. ... At Easter the barons again gathered in
arms at Brackley and renewed their claim. 'Why do they not ask
for my kingdom?' cried John in a burst of passion; but the
whole country rose as one man at his refusal. London threw
open her gates to the army of the barons, now organized under
Robert Fitz-Walter, 'the marshal of the army of God and the
holy Church.' The example of the capital was at once followed
by Exeter and Lincoln; promises of aid came from Scotland and
Wales; the northern nobles marched hastily to join their
comrades in London. With seven horsemen in his train John
found himself face to face with a nation in arms. ... Nursing
wrath in his heart the tyrant bowed to necessity, and summoned
the barons to a conference at Runnymede. An island in the
Thames between Staines and Windsor had been chosen as the
place of conference: the king encamped on one bank, while the
barons covered the marshy flat, still known by the name of
Runnymede, on the other. Their delegates met in the island
between them. ... The Great Charter was discussed, agreed to,
and signed in a single day [June 15, A. D. 1215]. One copy of
it still remains in the British Museum, injured by age and
fire, but with the royal seal still hanging from the brown,
shriveled parchment."
_J. R Green,
Short History of the England People,
chapter 3, sections 2-3._
"As this was the first effort towards a legal government, so
is it beyond comparison the most important event in our
history, except that, Revolution without which its benefits
would have been rapidly annihilated. The constitution of
England has indeed no single date from which its duration is
to be reckoned. The institutions of positive law, the far more
important changes which time has wrought in the order of
society, during six hundred years subsequent to the Great
Charter, have undoubtedly lessened its direct application to
our present circumstances. But it is still the key-stone of
English liberty. All that has since been obtained is little
more than as confirmation or commentary. ... The essential
clauses of Magna Charta are those which protect the personal
liberty and property of all freemen, by giving security from
arbitrary imprisonment and arbitrary spoliation.
{803}
'No freeman (says the 29th chapter of Henry III.'s charter,
which, as the existing law, I quote in preference to that of
John, the variations not being very material) shall be taken
or imprisoned, or be disseised of his freehold, or liberties,
or free customs, or be outlawed, or exiled, or any otherwise
destroyed; nor will we pass upon him, nor send upon, but by
lawful judgment of his peers, or by the law of the land. We
will sell to no man, we will not deny or delay to any man,
justice or right.' It is obvious that these words, interpreted
by any honest court of law, convey an ample security for the
two main rights of civil society."
_H. Hallam,
The Middle Ages,
chapter 8, part 2._
"The Great Charter, although drawn up in the form of a royal
grant, was really a treaty between the king and his subjects.
... It is the collective people who really form the other high
contracting party in the great capitulation,--the three
estates of the realm, not, it is true, arranged in order
according to their profession or rank, but not the less
certainly combined in one national purpose, and securing by
one bond the interests and rights of each other, severally and
all together. ... The barons maintain and secure the right of
the whole people as against themselves as well as against
their master. Clause by clause the rights of the commons are
provided for as well as the rights of the nobles. ... The
knight is protected against the compulsory exaction of his
services, and the horse and cart of the freeman against the
irregular requisition even of the sheriff. ... The Great
Charter is the first great public act of the nation, after it
has realised its own identity. ... The whole of the
constitutional history of England is little more than a
commentary on Magna Carta."
_W. Stubbs,
Constitutional History of England,
chapter 12, section 155._
The following is the text of Magna Carta;