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MAGNA CARTA
A COMMENTARY ON THE GREAT CHARTER
OF KING JOHN
PUBLISHED BY
JAMES MACLEHOSE AND SONS, GLASGOW
=Publishers to the University.=
---
MACMILLAN AND CO., LTD., LONDON.
_New York_, _The Macmillan Co._
_London_, _Simpkin, Hamilton and Co._
_Cambridge_, _Macmillan and Bowes_.
_Edinburgh_, _Douglas and Foulis_.
_Sydney_, _Angus and Robertson_.
MCMV.
MAGNA CARTA
A COMMENTARY ON THE GREAT
CHARTER OF KING JOHN
WITH AN
HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION
BY
WILLIAM SHARP McKECHNIE
M.A., LL.B., D.PHIL.
LECTURER ON CONSTITUTIONAL LAW AND HISTORY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW
AUTHOR OF ‘THE STATE AND THE INDIVIDUAL; AN INTRODUCTION TO POLITICAL
SCIENCE’
GLASGOW
JAMES MACLEHOSE AND SONS
PUBLISHERS TO THE UNIVERSITY
1905
GLASGOW: PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS
BY ROBERT MACLEHOSE AND CO. LTD.
TO THE
MEMORY OF MY FATHER
WILLIAM McKECHNIE, M.D.
BORN 1ST APRIL, 1814
DIED 2ND SEPTEMBER, 1887
PREFACE
No Commentary upon Magna Carta has hitherto been written from the
standpoint of modern research. No serious attempt has yet been made to
supersede, or even adequately to supplement, the works of Coke and
Richard Thomson, published respectively in 1642 and 1829, and now
hopelessly out of date. This lack of enterprise may be due in part to a
natural reluctance to undertake so laborious a task, but seems also to
suggest tacit acquiescence in the opinion of Bishop Stubbs that no
separate commentary is required, since “the whole of the constitutional
history of England is little more than a commentary on Magna Carta.”
Yet, for that very reason the Great Charter is surely worthy to be made
the subject of special and detailed study, since few documents can
compete with it in the variety and interest of its contents, in the
vividness of its historical setting, or in the influence it has
exercised on the struggle for constitutional liberty. That this
conspicuous gap in our historical and legal literature should have
remained so long unfilled is the more remarkable in view of the great
advance, amounting almost to a revolution, which has been effected since
Coke and Thomson wrote. Within the last twenty years, in especial, a
wealth of new material has been explored with notable results.
Discoveries have been made, profoundly affecting our views of every
branch of law, every organ of government, and every aspect of social and
individual life in medieval England. Nothing, however, has hitherto been
done towards applying to the systematic elucidation of Magna Carta the
new stores of knowledge thus accumulated.
With this object in view, I have endeavoured, throughout several years
of hard, but congenial work, to collect, sift, and arrange the mass of
evidence, drawn from many scattered sources, capable of throwing light
upon John’s Great Charter. The results have now been condensed into the
Commentary which fills two thirds of the present volume. This attempt to
explain, point by point, the sixty-three chapters of Magna Carta,
embracing, as these do, every topic—legal, political, economic and
social—in which John and his barons felt a vital interest, has involved
an analysis in some detail of the whole public and private life of
England during the thirteenth century. The Commentary is preceded by a
Historical Introduction, which describes the events leading to the
crisis of 1215, analyzes the grievances which stirred the barons to
revolt, discusses the contents and characteristics of the Charter,
traces its connection with the subsequent course of English history, and
gives some account of previous editions and commentaries.
While reference has been made throughout to original sources where these
were available, advantage has been freely taken of the labours of
others. If a debt of gratitude requires to be here acknowledged to
previous commentators, a far deeper debt is due to many scholars who
have, within recent years, by their labours in various fields not
directly connected with Magna Carta, incidentally thrown light on topics
of which the Charter treats. Of Bishop Stubbs it is almost unnecessary
to speak, since his works form the common starting-point of all
historians and constitutional lawyers of the present generation. Readers
versed in modern literature will readily trace the influence of Prof.
Maitland, Mr. J. Horace Round, Sir Frederic Pollock, Mr. L. O. Pike, and
Prof. Prothero; while the numerous other authorities laid under
contribution are referred to in the foot-notes and the appended
bibliography. Frequent reference has been made to two independent and
scholarly histories of the reign of John which have recently
appeared—Miss Norgate’s _John Lackland_, and Sir James H. Ramsay’s
_Angevin Empire_. Of the older books dealing directly with the subject
in hand, Sir William Blackstone’s _Great Charter_ has been found the
best; while among modern works the _Chartes_ of M. Charles Bémont is the
most valuable. The inexhaustible stores of Madox’s _History of the
Exchequer_ have also been freely drawn upon.
While these pages were passing through the press a brilliant essay by
Mr. Edward Jenks appeared in the pages of _The Independent Review_ for
November 1904, whose title _The Myth of Magna Carta_ indicates the
unconventional and iconoclastic lines on which it proceeds. He argues
with much force that the Charter was the product of the selfish action
of the barons pressing their own interests, and not of any disinterested
or national movement; that it was not, by any means, “a great landmark
in history”; and that, instead of proving a material help in England’s
advance towards constitutional freedom, it was rather “a stumbling block
in the path of progress,” being entirely feudal and reactionary in its
intention and effects. Finally, for most of the popular misapprehensions
concerning it, he holds Sir Edward Coke responsible. How far the present
writer is in agreement with these opinions will appear from the
following pages: but Mr. Jenks’ position would seem to require
modification in at least three respects: (1) A few of the provisions of
John’s Charter are by no means of a reactionary nature. (2) Coke cannot
be credited with the initiation of all, or even most, of the popular
fallacies which have come, in the course of centuries, to cluster so
thickly round the Charter. (3) Mr. Jenks, perhaps, undervalues the
importance of traditional interpretations which, even when based on
insecure historical foundations, are shown in the sequel to have proved
of supreme value in the battle of freedom.
I am indebted to four friends who have kindly read my proof sheets, to
Mr. W. R. J. Gray, and Mr. Robert A. Moody, whose good offices in this
direction are not now rendered for the first time, and to two of the
members of my Honours Class of 1903-4, Mr. A. C. Black, Jun., and Mr. D.
B. Mungo, all of whom have been zealous in help and fertile in
suggestion.
KNIGHTSWOOD, ELDERSLIE,
RENFREWSHIRE, _6th February, 1905_
CONTENTS
HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION.
PART I. EVENTS LEADING TO MAGNA CARTA:
PAGE
I. William I. to Henry II.: Main Problem, the 1
Monarchy,
II. William I. to Henry II.: Problem of Local 16
Government,
III. William I. to Henry II.: Problem of Church and 20
State,
IV. Richard I. and John, 23
V. The Years of Crisis, 33
VI. Runnymede, and after, 43
PART II. FEUDAL GRIEVANCES AND MAGNA CARTA:
I. The Immediate Causes of the Crisis, 58
II. The Crown and Feudal Obligations, 64
III. Royal Justice and Feudal Justice, 93
PART III. MAGNA CARTA: ITS FORM AND CONTENTS:
I. Its Prototypes: Earlier Charters, 113
II. Magna Carta: Its Form and Juridical Nature, 123
III. Magna Carta: Its Contents and Characteristics, 129
IV. Magna Carta: An Estimate of its Value, 144
V. Magna Carta: Its Defects, 150
VI. Magna Carta: Value of Traditional Interpretations, 154
VII. Magna Carta: Its Traditional Relation to Trial by 158
Jury,
PART IV. HISTORICAL SEQUEL TO MAGNA CARTA:
I. Reissues and Confirmations of the Great Charter, 164
II. Magna Carta and the Reforms of Edward I., 186
PART V. MAGNA CARTA; ORIGINAL VERSIONS, PRINTED EDITIONS, AND
COMMENTARIES:
I. Manuscripts of Magna Carta and Relative Documents, 194
II. Previous Editions and Commentaries, 205
MAGNA CARTA:
TEXT, TRANSLATION, COMMENTARY.
PREAMBLE.
I. The King’s Title. II. The names of the consenting 215
Nobles. III. The Reasons of the Grant,
CHAPTER ONE.
I. The Rights of the National Church: (1) _Quod 222
Anglicana ecclesia libera sit_; (2) Canonical
Election. II. Civil and Political Rights,
CHAPTER TWO.
I. Assessment of Reliefs. II. Units of Assessment: (1) 229
_Feodum militis integrum_; (2) _Baronia integra_; (3)
_Baronia comitis integra._ III. Liability of Church
Property to Reliefs,
CHAPTER THREE.
No Relief after Wardship, 239
CHAPTER FOUR.
Wardship: (1) The Definition of Waste; (2) The 241
Punishment of Wasteful Guardians; (3) Provision
against Recurrence,
CHAPTER FIVE.
I. The Obligations of the Warden of a Lay-fief. II. 246
Wardship over Vacant Sees,
CHAPTER SIX.
The Marriage of Wards, 250
CHAPTER SEVEN.
I. The Widow’s Share of Real Estate: (1) Dower; (2) 253
_Maritagium_; (3) _Hereditas._ II. Her Share of
Personal Estate. III. Provision for her Immediate
Needs: (1) Quarantine; (2) Estovers of Common,
CHAPTER EIGHT.
Marriage of Widows, 260
CHAPTER NINE.
Procedure for Enforcing Payment of Debts, 261
CHAPTER TEN.
Usury. I. The History of the Jews in England. II. Legal 265
Position of the Jews,
CHAPTER ELEVEN.
Widows and Children of Debtors to be Protected against 273
Creditors,
CHAPTER TWELVE.
I. Protection of Crown Tenants from Arbitrary Exactions: 274
(1) Scutage; (2) Feudal Aids. II. Protection of
Citizens of London: Aids and Tallages. III. Magna
Carta and the Theory of Parliamentary Taxation,
CHAPTER THIRTEEN.
Liberties and Free Customs of London, 284
CHAPTER FOURTEEN.
Method of obtaining the Common Council of the Kingdom. 291
I. Nature of the Summons. II. Composition of the
Council. III. Position of the “Minor Barons.” IV.
Representation. V. Powers and Functions of the
Council. VI. Rights of Majorities and Minorities,
CHAPTER FIFTEEN.
Restrictions on Mesne Lords taking Aids. I. Points of 301
difference between tenants-in-chief and under-tenants.
II. The influence of Magna Carta upon later practice,
CHAPTER SIXTEEN.
No one to perform greater service for a tenement than is 306
due,
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.
Common Pleas. I. The Curia Regis as a Court of Law. II. 308
Common Pleas and Royal Pleas. III. Effects of Magna
Carta on the Genesis of the three Courts of Common
Law. IV. Evolution of the Court of Common Pleas. V.
Erroneous Views,
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.
Petty Assizes. I. The Curia Regis and the Travelling 317
Justices. II. The Nature and Origin of the three Petty
Assizes. III. The Assizes in 1215. IV. An Erroneous
View. V. Later History of the Justices of Assize,
CHAPTER NINETEEN.
Procedure at Petty Assizes, 331
CHAPTER TWENTY.
Amercement. I. Three Stages of Criminal Law: (1) The 334
blood-feud; (2) Fixed money-payments; (3) Amercements.
II. Magna Carta and Amercements: (1) Of the
Freeholder; (2) Of the Merchant; (3) Of the Villein;
(4) Fines and Amercements; (5) Contenement,
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE.
Amercement of Earls and Barons, 346
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO.
Amercement of the Clergy, 349
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE.
I. Origin of the Obligation to make Bridges. II. The 352
King’s Rights of Falconry. III. Erroneous
Interpretations,
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR.
I. Pleas of the Crown. II. Keeping and Trying Criminal 358
Pleas. III. The Intention of Magna Carta. IV. An
Erroneous View. V. Local Magistrates under John: (1)
The Sheriff; (2) The Constable; (3) The Coroner; (4)
The Bailiff,
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE.
Farms of Counties and Hundreds, 372
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX.
Crown Debtors. I. Nature of the Grievance. II. The Right 376
to Bequeath,
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN.
Intestate Succession, 382
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT.
I. Purveyance in General. II. Branches of it restricted 385
by Magna Carta. III. Its other Branches,
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE.
Castle-Guard, 390
CHAPTER THIRTY.
Purveyance of Horses and Carts, 392
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE.
Purveyance of Timber, 393
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO.
I. The Crown’s Claim to Felons’ Property: (1) Lands; (2) 394
Chattels. II. Indictment, Conviction, and Attainder,
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE.
Obstructions to be removed from Rivers, 402
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR.
The Writ “_Praecipe_.” I. Royal Writs and the Feudal 405
Jurisdictions. II. Influence of this provision on
later legal Development,
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE.
Standards of Weights and Measures, 414
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX.
Writ _de Odio et Atia_. I. Trial by Combat prior to 417
John’s Reign. II. The Writ of Life and Limbs. III. Its
Subsidiary Uses. IV. Later History of Appeal and
Battle,
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN.
Prerogative Wardship, 427
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT.
No Bailiff to put anyone to his “law” without Witnesses. 430
I. Probable Object of this Chapter. II. Medieval
Interpretations. III. Modern Interpretations,
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE.
I. Its Main Object: (1) Judgment must precede Execution; 436
(2) _Per judicium parium_; (3) _Per legem terrae_; (4)
Meaning of "_vel_." II. The scope of the Protection
afforded. III. What classes of men enjoyed it. IV.
Reactionary Aspects. V. The Genesis of this Chapter.
VI. Later History of "Judgment of Peers." VII.
Erroneous Interpretations,
CHAPTER FORTY.
Justice not to be Sold, Refused, or Delayed, 459
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE.
Freedom of Trade. I. Magna Carta favours Alien 463
Merchants. II. Customs and Tolls. III. The Motives
prompting this Chapter. IV. English Boroughs and
Merchant Strangers,
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO.
Liberty to leave the Kingdom—Writs _ne exeat regno_, 473
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE.
Tenants of Escheated Baronies, 478
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR.
I. The Royal Forests. II. Their Origin. III. Forest 482
Officials. IV. Forest Courts. V. Chases, Parks, and
Warrens. VI. Forest Rights and Forest Grievances. VII.
Later History of Forests and Forest Laws,
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE.
Justices, Castellans, Sheriffs, and Bailiffs to be 502
law-abiding men,
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX.
Wardship over Vacant Abbeys, 505
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN.
Forests and River-banks encroached upon by John, 507
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT.
Procedure for abolishing Evil Customs of Forests and 511
elsewhere,
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE.
Hostages and Charters to be restored, 514
CHAPTER FIFTY.
List of those excluded from offices of trust in future, 518
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE.
Expulsion of Foreign Mercenaries, 522
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO.
Procedure for redressing wrongful Disseisins, 523
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE.
A Crusader’s Respite allowed to John, 525
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR.
Right of Appeal by Women, 527
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE.
Remission of Unjust Fines and Amercements, 530
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX.
Redress for Welshmen wrongfully disseised by John, 533
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN.
Redress for Welshmen wrongfully disseised by Henry II. 534
or Richard I.,
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT.
Welsh Hostages and Charters to be restored, 536
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE.
Justice to be done to Alexander, King of Scots; 537
Relations of England and Scotland,
CHAPTER SIXTY.
Extension of Provisions of Charter to Tenants of Mesne 543
Lords,
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE.
The _Forma Securitatis_ or Legal Sanction of the 545
Charter. I. Nature of the Security. II. Minor Details
of the Scheme: (1) Twenty-five Executors; (2) A quorum
may act; (3) Sub-committee of four; (4) Local Agents;
(5) The Co-operation of the Public. III. Criticism of
the Scheme. IV. Dr. Gneist’s Opinion. V. Failure of
the Scheme,
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO.
Prelates to issue Letters Testimonial, 562
CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE.
Formal Clauses, 563
APPENDIX.
DOCUMENTS RELATIVE TO, OR ILLUSTRATIVE OF, JOHN’S MAGNA
CARTA:
I. The Charter of Liberties of Henry I. (1100), 565
II. The Second or Oxford Charter of Stephen (1136), 567
III. Charter of Henry II. (_circa_ 1154), 568
IV. The so-called “Unknown Charter of Liberties,” 569
V. The Articles of the Barons (1215), 570
VI. Writs Supplementary of John’s Great Charter, 576
VII. The Great Charter of Henry III. (Second Re-issue, 580
6th November, 1217),
VIII. Carta de Foresta, 586
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY AND LIST OF AUTHORITIES REFERRED TO, 590
INDEX TO STATUTES, 597
GENERAL INDEX 599
HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION.
PART I.
EVENTS LEADING TO MAGNA CARTA.
The Great Charter is too often treated as the outcome of purely
accidental causes. Students of its origin are sometimes content to
explain it as a mere tangible product of the successful resistance
called forth by the tyrannies of King John. That monarch’s personal
misdeeds, it is maintained, goaded into determined action a fierce
unflinching opposition which never rested until it had achieved success;
and the outcome of this success was the winning of the Great Charter of
Liberties. The moving causes of events of such tremendous moment are
thus sought in the characteristics and vices of one man. If John had
never lived and sinned, so it would appear, the foundations of English
freedom would never have been laid.
Such shallow views of history unnecessarily belittle the magnitude and
inevitable nature of the sequence of causes and effects upon which great
issues really depend. The compelling logic of events forces a way for
its own fulfilment, independent of the caprices, aims and ambitions of
individual men. The incidents of John’s career are the occasions, not
the causes, of the great national movement which laid the foundations of
English liberties. The origin of Magna Carta lies too deep to be
determined by any purely contingent or accidental phenomena. It is as
unwise as it is unnecessary to suppose that the course of constitutional
development in England was suddenly and violently wrested into a
completely new channel, merely because of the incapacity or misdeeds of
the temporary occupant of the throne. The source of the discontent
fanned to flame by John’s oppressions must be sought in earlier reigns.
The genesis of the Charter cannot be understood apart from its
historical antecedents, and these are inextricably bound up with the
whole story how England grew to be a nation.
In expounding the origin of the Charter, it is necessary briefly to
narrate how the scattered Anglo-Saxon and Danish tribes and territories,
originally unconnected, were gradually welded together and grew into
England; how this fusion was made permanent by the growth of a strong
form of centralized monarchical government which crushed out all
attempts at local independence, and threatened to become the most
absolute despotism in Europe; and how, finally, the Crown, because of
the very plenitude of its power, challenged opposition and called into
play forces which set limits to royal prerogatives and royal
aggressions, and at the same time laid the foundations of the reign of
law. A short survey of the early history of England forms a necessary
preliminary to a right understanding of Magna Carta. Such a survey makes
prominent two leading movements, one of which succeeds the other;
namely, the establishment of a strong monarchy able to bring order out
of anarchy, and the subsequent establishment of safeguards to prevent
this source of order degenerating into an unrestrained tyranny, and so
crushing out not merely anarchy but legitimate freedom as well. The
later movement, in favour of liberty and the Great Charter, was the
natural complement, and, in part, the consequence of the earlier
movement in the direction of a strong government able to enforce peace.
In historical sequence, order precedes freedom.
These two problems, each forming the counterpart of the other,
necessarily arise in the history of every nation, and in every age; the
problem of _order_, or how to found a central government strong enough
to suppress anarchy, and the problem of _freedom_, or how to set limits
to an autocracy threatening to overshadow individual liberty. Neither of
these problems can ever be ignored, not even in the twentieth century;
although to-day the accumulated political experience of ages has enabled
modern nations, such at least as are sufficiently educated in
self-government, to thrust them into the background, out of view. Deep
political insight may still be acknowledged in Æsop’s fable of Jupiter
and the frogs. King Log proves as ineffective against foreign invasion
as he is void of offence to domestic freedom; King Stork secures the
triumph of his subjects in time of war, but devours them in time of
peace. All nations in their early efforts to obtain an efficient
government have to choose between these two types of ruler—between an
executive, harmless but weak; and one powerful enough effectively to
direct the business of government at home and abroad, but ready to turn
the powers entrusted to him for the good of all, to his own selfish uses
and the trampling out of his subjects’ liberties.
On the whole, the miseries of the long centuries of Anglo-Saxon rule
were mainly the outcome of the Crown’s weakness; while, at the Norman
Conquest, England escaped from the mild sceptre of inefficiency, only to
fall under the cruel sceptre of selfish strength. Yet the able kings of
the new dynasty, powerful as they were, had to struggle in order to
maintain their supremacy; for, although the conquered English races were
incapable of concerted resistance against their Norman masters, the
unruly alien barons fought vigorously to shake off the royal control.
During a century of Norman rule, constant warfare was waged between two
great principles—the monarchic standing on the whole for order, seeking
to crush anarchy, and the oligarchic or baronial, standing on the whole
for liberty, protesting against the tyranny of autocratic power.
Sometimes one of these was in the ascendant; sometimes the other. The
history of medieval England is the swing of the pendulum between these
two extremes.
The main plot, then, of early English history, centres round the attempt
to found a strong monarchy, and yet to set limits to its strength. With
this main plot subordinate plots are interwoven. Chief among these must
be reckoned the necessity of defining the relations of the central to
the local government, and the need of an acknowledged frontier between
the domains of Church and State. On the other hand, all that interesting
group of problems connected with the _ideal form_ of government, much
discussed in the days of Aristotle as in our own, is notably absent,
never having been forced by the logic of events upon the mind of
medieval Europe. Monarchy was apparently assumed as the only possible
scheme of government; while the relative merits of aristocracy and
democracy, or of the much-vaunted constitution known as “mixed,” were
not canvassed, since these forms of constitution were not within the
sphere of practical politics.
The student of history will do well to concentrate his attention at
first on the main problem, while viewing the subsidiary ones in their
relations to the central current.
I. William I. to Henry II.—Main Problem: the Monarchy.
The attention of the most casual student is arrested by the
consideration of the difficulties which surrounded the English nation in
its early struggles for bare existence. The great problem was, first,
how to get itself into being, and thereafter how to guard against the
forces of disintegration, which strove without rest to tear it to pieces
again. The dawn of English history shows the beginning of that long slow
process of consolidation in which unconscious reason played a deeper
part than human will, whereby many discordant tribes and races, many
independent provinces, were crushed together into something bearing a
rude likeness to a united nation. Many forces converged in achieving
this result. The coercion of strong tribes over their weaker neighbours,
the pressure of outside foes, the growth of a body of law, and of public
opinion, the influence of religion in the direction of peace, all helped
to weld a chaos of incongruous and warring elements together.
It is notable that each of the three influences, destined ultimately to
aid most materially in this process of unification, threatened at one
time to have a contrary effect. Thus the rivalries of the smaller
kingdoms tended at first towards a complete disruption, before Wessex
succeeded in asserting an undisputed supremacy; the Christianizing of
England partly by Celtic missionaries from the north and partly by
emissaries from Rome threatened to split the country into two, until
their mutual rivalries were stilled after the Synod of Whitby in 664;
and one effect of the incursion of the Danes was to create an absolute
barrier between the lands that lay on either side of Watling Street,
before the whole country succumbed to the unifying pressure of Cnut and
his sons.
The stern discipline of foreign conquest was required to make national
unity possible; and, with the restoration of the old Wessex dynasty in
the person of Edward Confessor, the forces of disintegration again made
headway. England threatened once more to fall to pieces, but at the
critical and appointed time the iron rule of the Normans came to
complete what the Danes had begun half a century earlier. As the
weakness of the Anglo-Saxon kings and the disruption of the country had
gone hand in hand, so the process which, after the Conquest, made
England one, was identical with the process which established the throne
of the new dynasty on a strong, enduring basis. The complete unification
of England was the result of the Norman despotism.
Thereafter, the strength of its monarchy was what rendered England
unique in medieval Europe. Three great kings in especial contributed, by
their ability and indomitable power of will, to this result—William the
Conqueror, Henry Beauclerk, and Henry Plantagenet. In a sense, the work
of all three was the same, namely, to build up the central authority
against the disintegrating effects of feudal anarchy; but the policy of
each was necessarily modified by changing times and needs. The
foundations of the whole were laid by the Conqueror, whose character and
circumstances combined to afford him an opportunity unparalleled in
history. The difficulties of his task, and the methods by which he
carried it to a successful issue, are best understood in relation to the
nature of the opposition he had to dread. Feudalism was the great
current of the age—a tide formed by many converging streams, all flowing
in the same direction, unreasoning like the blind powers of Nature,
carrying away and submerging every obstacle in its path. In other parts
of Europe—in Germany, France, and Italy, as in Scotland—the ablest
monarchs found their thrones undermined by this feudal current. In
England alone the monarchy made headway against the flood. William I.
wisely refrained from any mad attempt to stay the torrent; but, while
accepting it, he quietly subjected it to his own purposes. He carefully
watched and modified the tendencies making for feudalism, which he found
in England on his arrival, and he profoundly altered the feudal usages
and rights which his followers transplanted from the Norman soil. The
special expedients used by him for this purpose are well known, and are
all closely connected with his crafty policy of balancing the
Anglo-Saxon basis of his rule against the imported Norman
superstructure, and of selecting at his own discretion such elements as
suited him in either. He encouraged the adoption or intensification in
England of feudalism, considered as a system of land tenure and as a
system of social distinctions based on the possession of land; but he
successfully endeavoured to check the evils of its unrestrained growth
in its other equally important aspects, namely, as a system of local
government seeking to be independent of the Crown, and as a system of
jurisdiction. As a political system, it was always a subject of
suspicion to William, for he viewed it in the light of his double
experience in Normandy as feudal lord and feudal vassal.
William’s policy was one of balancing. His whole career in England was
characteristically inaugurated by his care to support his claim to the
throne on a double basis. Not content to depend merely on the right of
conquest, he insisted on having his title confirmed by a body claiming
to represent the old Witenagemot of England, and he further alleged that
he had been formally named as successor by his kinsman, Edward
Confessor, a nomination strengthened by the renunciation of Harold in
his favour. Thus, to his Norman followers claiming to have set him by
force of arms on his throne, William might point to the form of election
by the Witan, while for his English subjects, claiming to have elected
him, the presence of the foreign troops was an even more effective
argument. Throughout his reign, his plan was to balance the old English
laws and institutions against the new Norman ones, with himself as
umpire over all. Thus he retained whatever suited him in Anglo-Saxon
customs. Roger of Hoveden tells us how, in the fourth year of his reign,
twelve of the subject English from each county—noble, wise, and learned
in the laws—were summoned to recite on oath the old customs of the
land.[1] He retained, too, the old popular moots or meetings of the
shire and hundred as a counterpoise to the feudal jurisdictions; the
fyrd or militia of all free men as a set-off to the feudal levy; and
such of the incidents of the old Anglo-Saxon tenures of land as met his
requirements.
-----
Footnote 1:
R. Hoveden, _Chronica_, II. 218.
-----
Thus the subject English, with their customs and ancient institutions,
were used as expedients for modifying the excesses of feudalism.
William, however, did not shrink from innovations where these suited his
purpose. The great earldoms into which England had been divided, even
down to the Norman Conquest, were abolished. New earldoms were indeed
created, but on an entirely different basis. Even the great officers,
subsequently known as Earls Palatine, always few in number, never
attained either to the extent of territory or to the independence of the
Anglo-Saxon ealdormen. William was chary of creating even ordinary
earls, and such as he did create soon became mere holders of empty
titles of honour, while they found themselves ousted from all real power
by the Norman _vicecomites_ or sheriffs. No English earl was a “count”
in the continental sense (that is, a real ruler of a “county”). Further,
no earl was allowed to hold too large an estate within his titular
shire; and William, while compelled to reward his followers’ services
with great possessions, was careful that these should be split up in
widely scattered districts of his Kingdom. Thus the great feudatories
were prevented from consolidating their resources against the Crown.
Various ingenious devices were used for checking the feudal excesses so
prevalent on the continent. Rights of private war, coinage, and
castle-building, were jealously watched and circumscribed; while private
jurisdictions, although tolerated as a necessary evil, were kept within
bounds. The manor was in England the normal unit of seignorial
jurisdiction, and higher courts of Honours were so exceptional as to be
a negligible quantity. No feudal appeal lay from the manorial court of
one magnate to that of his over-lord, while, in later reigns at least,
appeals were encouraged to the _Curia Regis_. Almost at the close of
William’s reign a new encroachment upon the feudal spirit was
accomplished, when the Conqueror on Salisbury Plain compelled all
freeholders to take an oath of homage and fealty personally to the king.
The results of this policy have been well summarized as “a strong
monarchy, a relatively weak baronage, and a homogeneous people.”
During the reign of William II. (1087-1100) the constitution made no
conspicuous advance. The foundations had been laid; but Rufus was more
intent on his hunting and enjoyments, than on the deeper matters of
statecraft. Some minor details of feudal organization were doubtless
settled and defined in these thirteen years by the King’s Treasurer,
Ralph Flambard; but the extent to which he innovated on the practice of
the elder William is matter of dispute. On the whole, the reign must be
considered as a time of rest between two periods of advance.
Henry I. (1100-35) took up, with far-seeing statesman’s eye and much
vigour, the work of consolidation. His policy shows an advance upon that
of his father. William had contented himself with controlling and
curbing the main vices of feudalism, while he played off against it the
English native institutions. Henry went further, and introduced within
the _Curia Regis_ itself a new class of men representing a new principle
of government. The great offices of state, previously held by men of
baronial rank, were now filled with creatures of Henry’s own, men of
humble birth, whose merit had raised them to his favour, and whose only
title to power lay in his goodwill. The employment of this strictly
professional class of administrators was one of the chief contributions
made by Henry to the growth of the constitution. His other great
achievement was the organization of the Exchequer, primarily as a source
of royal revenue, but soon found useful as a means of making his will
felt in every corner of England. For this great work he was fortunate to
secure in Roger, Bishop of Salisbury, the help of a man who combined
genius with painstaking ability. At the Exchequer, as organized by the
King and his minister, the sheriff of each county twice a year, at
Easter and at Michaelmas, rendered account of every payment that had
passed through his hands. His balance was adjusted before all the great
officers of the King’s household, who subjected his accounts to close
scrutiny and criticism. Official records were drawn up, one of which—the
famous Pipe Roll of 1130,—is extant at the present day. As the sums
received by the sheriff affected every class of society in town and
country, these half-yearly audits enabled the King’s advisers to
scrutinize the lives and conduct of every one of importance in the land.
These half-yearly investigations were rendered more effective by the
existence at the Exchequer of a great record of every landed estate in
England. With this the sheriffs’ returns could be checked and compared.
Henry’s Exchequer thus found one of its most powerful weapons in the
great Domesday Survey, the most enduring proof of the statesmanship of
the Conqueror, by whose orders and under whose direction it had been
compiled.
The central scrutiny conducted within the two chambers of the Exchequer
was supplemented by occasional inspections conducted in each county. The
King’s representatives, including among them usually some of the
officers whose duty it was to preside over the half-yearly audit,
visited, at intervals still irregular, the various shires. These Eyres,
as they were called, were at first chiefly undertaken for financial
purposes. The main object was to check, on the scene of their labours,
the statements made at Westminster by the various sheriffs. From the
first, such financial investigations necessarily involved the trial of
pleas. Complaints of oppression at the hands of the local tyrant of the
county were naturally made and determined on the spot; gradually, but
not until a later reign, the judicial business became equally important
with the financial, and ultimately even more important.
Henry at his death in 1135 seemed to have carried nearly to completion
his congenial task of building a strong monarchy on the foundations laid
by William I. Much of his work was, however, for a time undone, while
all of it seemed in imminent danger of perishing for ever, because he
left no male heir of his body to succeed him on the throne. His
daughter’s claims were set aside by Stephen, the son of the Conqueror’s
daughter, and a cadet of the House of Blois, to whom Henry had played
the indulgent uncle, and who repaid his benefactor’s generosity by
constituting himself his heir. From the first moment of his reign,
Stephen proved unequal to the task of preserving the monarchy intact
from the wild forces that beat around the throne. His failure is
attributed by some to his personal characteristics, and by others to the
defective nature of his title, combined with the presence of a rival in
the field in the person of his cousin, Henry’s daughter, the ex-Empress
Matilda. The nineteen years of anarchy which nominally formed his reign
did nothing—and worse than nothing—to continue the work of his great
ancestors. The power of the Crown was humbled, and England was almost
torn in fragments by the selfish claims of rival feudal magnates to
local independence.
With the accession of Henry II. (1154) the tide quickly turned, and
turned for good.
Of the numerous steps taken by Henry Plantagenet to complete the work of
the earlier master-builders of the English monarchy, only a few need
here be mentioned. Ascending the throne in early manhood, he brought
with him a statesman’s instinct peculiar to himself, together with the
unconquerable energy common to his race. He rapidly overhauled every
existing institution and every branch of administration. The permanent
_Curia Regis_ was not only restored to efficient working order, but was
improved in each one of its many aspects—as the King’s household, as a
financial bureau, as the administrative centre of the entire kingdom,
and as the special vehicle of royal justice. The Exchequer, which was
indeed originally merely the _Curia_ in its financial aspect, received
the re-organization so urgently needed after the terrible strains to
which it had been subjected amid the quarrels of Stephen and Matilda.
The Pipe Rolls were revived and various minor reforms in financial
matters effected. All local courts (both the old popular courts of
hundred and county, and also the feudal jurisdictions) were brought
under the more effective control of the central government by various
expedients. Chief among these was the restoration of the system of Eyres
with their travelling justices (a natural supplement to the restoration
of the Exchequer), whose visits were now placed on a more regular and
systematic basis. Equally important were the King’s personal care in the
selection of fit men for the duties of sheriff, the frequent punishments
and removal from office of offenders, and the rigid insistence upon
efficient training and uprightness in all who enjoyed places of
authority under the Crown. Henry was strong enough to employ more
substantial men than the _novi homines_ of his grandfather without
suffering them to be less devoted to the interests of their Prince. Yet
another expedient for controlling local courts was the calling up of
cases to his own central feudal _Curia_, or before those benches of
professional judges, the future King’s Bench and Common Pleas, forming
as yet merely committees of the _Curia_ as a whole.
Closely connected with the control thus established over the local
courts was the new system of procedure instituted by Henry. The chief
feature was that each litigation must commence with an appropriate royal
writ issued from the Chancery. Soon for each class of action was devised
a special writ appropriate to itself, and the entire procedure came to
be known as "the writ process"—an important system to which English
jurisprudence owes both its form and the direction of its growth. Many
reforms which at first sight seem connected merely with minute points of
legal procedure were really fraught with immense purport to the
subsequent development of English law and English liberties. A great
future was reserved for certain expedients adopted by Henry for the
settlement of disputes as to the possession or ownership of land, and
also for certain expedients for reforming criminal justice instituted or
systematized by a great ordinance, issued in 1166, known as the Assize
of Clarendon.[2] A striking feature of Henry’s policy was the bold
manner in which he threw open the doors of his royal Courts of Law to
all-comers, and provided there—always in return for hard cash, be it
said—a better article in name of justice than could be procured
elsewhere in England, or for that matter, elsewhere in Europe. Thus, not
only was the Exchequer filled with fines and fees, but, insidiously and
without the danger involved in a frontal attack, Henry sapped the
strength of the great feudal magnates, and diverted the stream of
litigants from the manorial courts to his own. The same policy had still
another result in facilitating the growth of a body of common law,
uniform throughout the length and breadth of England, and opposed to the
varying usages of localities or even of individual baronial courts.
-----
Footnote 2:
The details of these reforms are fully discussed _infra_ under the
head of “Royal Justice and Feudal Justice,” and some of their ultimate
effects under the head of “Trial by Jury.”
-----
These reforms, besides influencing the current of events in England in
numerous ways, both direct and indirect, all helped to strengthen the
throne of Henry and his sons. Another class of reforms contributed
greatly to the same result, namely, the reorganization of the army. This
was effected in various ways: partly by the revival and more strict
enforcement of the obligations connected with the old Anglo-Saxon fyrd
or militia, under the Assize of Arms in 1181, which compelled every
freeman to maintain at his own expense weapons and warlike equipment
suited to his station in life; partly by the ingenious method of
increasing the amount of feudal service due from Crown tenants, based
upon an investigation instituted by the Crown and upon the written
replies returned by the barons, known to historians as “the _Cartae_ of
1166”; and partly by the development (not, as is usually supposed, the
_invention_) of the principle of scutage, a means whereby unwilling
military service, limited as it was by annoying restrictions as to time
and place, might be exchanged at the option of the Crown for money, with
which a more flexible army of mercenaries might be hired.
By these expedients, along with many others, Henry raised the English
monarchy, always in the ascendant since the Conquest, to the very zenith
of its power, and left to his sons the entire machinery of government in
perfect working order, combining high administrative efficiency with
great strength. Full of bitter strifes and troubles as his reign of
thirty-five years had been, nothing had interfered with the vigour and
success of the policy whereby he tightened his hold on England. Neither
the long bitter struggle with Becket and the Church, ending as it did in
Henry’s personal humiliation, nor the unnatural warfare with his sons,
which involved the depths of personal suffering to the King and hastened
his death in 1189, was allowed to interfere with his projects of reform
in England.
The last twenty years of his life had been darkened for him, and proved
troubled and anarchic in the extreme to his continental dominions; but
in England profound peace reigned. The last serious revolt of the powers
of feudal anarchy had been suppressed in 1173 with characteristic
thoroughness and moderation. After that date, the English monarchy
retained its supremacy almost without an effort.
II. William I. to Henry II.—Problem of Local Government.
It is necessary to leave for a time the English monarchy at its zenith,
still enjoying in 1189 the powers and reputation gained for it by Henry
of Anjou, and to retrace our steps, in order to consider two subsidiary
problems, each of which requires separate treatment—the problem of local
government, and that of the relations between Church and State. The
failure of the Princes of the House of Wessex to devise adequate
machinery for keeping the Danish and Anglian provinces in subjection to
their will was one main source of the weakness of their monarchy. When
Duke William solved this problem he took an enormous stride towards
establishing his throne on a securer basis.
Every age has to face, in its own way, a group of difficulties
essentially the same, although assuming such different names as Home
Rule, Local Government, or Federation. Problems as to the proper nature
of the local authority, the extent of the powers with which it may be
safely entrusted, and its relation to the central government, require
constantly to be solved. The difficulties involved, always great, were
unspeakably greater in an age when practically no administrative
machinery existed, and when rapid communication and serviceable roads
were unknown. A lively sympathy is excited by a consideration of the
almost insuperable difficulties that beset the path of King Edgar or
King Ethelred, endeavouring to rule from Winchester the distant tribes
of alien races inhabiting Northumbria, Mercia, and East Anglia. If such
a king placed a weakling as ruler over any distant province, anarchy
would result and his own authority might be endangered along with that
of his inefficient representative. Yet, if he entrusted the rule of that
province to too strong a man, he might find his suzerainty shaken off by
a viceroy who had consolidated his position and then defied his king.
Here, then, are the two horns of a dilemma, both of which are
illustrated by the course of early English history. When Wessex had
established some measure of authority over rival states, and was fast
growing into England, the policy at first followed was simply to leave
each province under its old native line of rulers, who now admitted a
nominal dependence on the King who ruled at Winchester. The early
West-Saxon Princes vacillated between two opposite lines of policy.
Spasmodic attempts at centralization alternated with the reverse policy
of local autonomy. In the days when Dunstan united the spiritual duties
of the See of Canterbury to the temporal duties of chief adviser to King
Edgar, the problem of local government became urgent. Dunstan’s scheme
has sometimes been described as a federal or home-rule policy—as a frank
surrender of the attempt to control exclusively from one centre the
mixed populations of Northern and Midland England. His attempted
solution was to loosen rather than to tighten further the bond; to
entrust with wide powers and franchises the local viceroy or ealdorman
in each district, and so to be content with a loose federal empire—a
union of hearts rather than a centralized despotism founded on coercion.
The dangers of such a system are the more obvious when it is remembered
that each ealdorman commanded the troops of his own province.
Cnut’s policy has been the subject of much discussion, and has sometimes
apparently been misunderstood. The better opinion is that, with his
Danish troops behind him, he felt strong enough to reverse Dunstan’s
tactics and to take a decisive step in the direction of centralization
or unity. His provincial viceroys (jarls or earls, as they were now
called, rather than by their old vague title of ealdormen), were
appointed on an entirely new basis. England was to be mapped out into
new administrative districts in the hope of obliterating the old tribal
divisions. Each of these was to be placed under a viceroy having no
hereditary or dynastic connection with the province he governed. In this
way, Cnut sought to avert the process by which the country was slowly
breaking up into a number of petty kingdoms.
If these viceroys were a source of strength to the powerful Cnut, they
were a source of weakness to the saintly Confessor, who was forced to
submit to the control of his provincial rulers, such as Godwin and
Leofric, as each in turn gained the upper hand in the field or in the
Witan. This process of disintegration continued until the coming of the
Conqueror utterly changed the relations of the monarchy to every other
factor in the national life.
Among the expedients adopted by the Norman Duke for reducing his
feudatories in England into subjection to the Crown, one of the most
important was the total abolition of the old provinces formerly governed
by separate ealdormen or jarls. Leaving out of account the exceptional
franchises, afterwards known as palatine earldoms, the real
representative of the King in each group of counties was now the sheriff
or _vicecomes_, not the earl. This Latin name of _vicecomes_ is
misleading, since the officer so-called in no sense represented the earl
or _comes_, but acted as the direct agent of the Crown. The name,
“viceroy,” more accurately describes his actual position and functions,
since he was directly responsible to the Crown, and independent of the
earl. The problem of local government, however, was not eradicated by
the substitution of the sheriff for the earl as chief magistrate in the
county; it only took a different form. The sheriffs themselves, when
relieved from the earl’s rivalry and control, tended to become too
powerful. If they never dreamed of openly defying the royal power, they
at least thwarted its exercise indirectly, appropriated to their private
uses items of revenue, pushed their own interests, and punished their
own enemies, while acting in the name of the King. The office threatened
to become territorial and hereditary,[3] and its holders aimed at
independence. New checks had to be devised to prevent this new local
authority from again defying the central power. New safeguards were
found, partly in the organization of the Exchequer and partly in the
device of sending periodically on circuit itinerant justices, who took
precedence of the sheriff, heard complaints against his misdeeds in his
own county, and thus enabled the Crown to keep a watchful eye on its
representatives. By such measures, Henry I. seemed almost to have solved
these problems before his death; but his success was apparent rather
than real.
-----
Footnote 3:
In one county, Westmoreland, the office did become hereditary.
-----
The incompleteness of Henry’s solution of the difficulty became evident
under Stephen, when the leading noble of each locality tried, generally
with success, to capture _both_ offices for himself; great earls like
Ralph of Chester and Geoffrey of Essex compelled the King not only to
confirm them as sheriffs in their own titular counties, but also to
confer on them exclusive right to act as justices therein.
With the accession of Henry II. the problem was, thanks to his energy
and genius, more satisfactorily solved, or at least forced once more
into the background. That great ruler was strong enough to prevent the
growth of the hereditary principle as applied to offices either of the
Household or of local magistrates. The sheriffs were frequently changed,
not only by the drastic and unique measure known as the Inquest of
Sheriffs, but systematically, and as a normal expedient of
administration. For the time being, the local government was kept in
proper subjection to the Crown; and gradually the problem solved itself.
The power of the sheriffs tended in the thirteenth century to decrease,
chiefly because they found important rivals not only in the itinerant
judges, but also in two new officers first heard of in the reign of
Richard I., the forerunners of the modern Coroner and Justice of the
Peace respectively. All fear that the sheriffs as administrative heads
of districts would assert practical independence of the Crown was thus
at an end. Yet each of them still remained a petty tyrant over the
inhabitants of his own bailiwick. While the Crown was able and willing
to avenge any direct neglect of its own interests, it was not always
sufficiently alert to avenge wrongs inflicted upon its humble subjects.
The problem of local government, then, was fast losing its pressing
importance as regards the Crown, and taking a new form, namely, the
necessity of protecting the weak from unjust fines and oppressions
inflicted on them by local magistrates. The sheriff’s local power was no
longer a source of weakness to the monarch, but had become an effective
part of the machinery which enabled the Crown to levy with impunity its
always increasing taxation.
III. William I. to Henry II.—Problem of Church and State.
The national Church had been, from an early date, in tacit alliance with
the Crown. The friendly aid of a long line of statesman-prelates from
Dunstan downwards had given to the Anglo-Saxon monarchy much of the
little strength it possessed. Before the Conquest the connection between
Church and State had been exceedingly close, so much so that no one
thought of drawing a sharp dividing line between. What afterwards became
two separate entities, drifting more and more into active opposition,
were at first merely two aspects of one whole—a whole which comprehended
all classes of the people, considered both in their spiritual and their
temporal relations. Change necessarily came with the Norman Conquest,
when the English Church was brought into closer contact with Rome, and
with the ecclesiastical ideals prevailing on the Continent. Yet no
fundamental alteration resulted; the friendly relations which bound the
English prelates to the English throne remained intact, while English
churchmen continued to look to Canterbury, rather than to Rome, for
guidance. The Church, in William the Conqueror’s new realm, retained
more of a national character than could be found in any other nation of
Europe.
Gratitude to the Pope for his moral support in the work of the Conquest
never modified William’s determination to allow no unwarranted papal
interference in his new domains. His letter, both outspoken and
courteous, in reply to papal demands is still extant. “I refuse to do
fealty nor will I, because neither have I promised it, nor do I find
that my predecessors did it to your predecessors.” Peter’s pence he was
willing to pay at the rate recognized by his Saxon predecessors; but all
encroachments would be politely repelled.
In settling the country newly reduced to his domination, the Duke of
Normandy found his most valuable adviser in a former Abbot of the Norman
Abbey of Bec, whom he raised to be Primate of all England. No record has
come down to us of any serious dispute between William and Lanfranc.
Substantially friendly relations between their successors in the offices
of King and Archbishop remained, notwithstanding Anselm’s condemnation
of the evil deeds of Rufus. Anselm warmly supported that King’s
authority over the Norman magnates, even while he resented his evil
practices towards the Church. He contented himself with a dignified
protest (made emphatic by a withdrawal of his presence from England)
against the new exactions upon the English prelates, and against the
long intervals during which vacancies remained unfilled. Returning at
Rufus’s death from a sort of honourable banishment at Rome, to aid Henry
in maintaining order and gaining peaceable accession to the throne,
Anselm found himself compelled by his conscience and the recent decrees
of a Lateran Council, to enter on the great struggle of the
investitures. Church and State were gradually disentangling themselves
from each other; but in many respects the spiritual and temporal powers
were still indissolubly locked together. In particular, every bishop was
a vassal of the king, holder of a Crown barony, as well as a prelate of
Holy Church. By whom, then, should a bishop be appointed, by the
spiritual or by the temporal power? Could he without sin perform homage
for the estates of his See? Who ought to invest him with ring and
crozier, the symbols of his office as a shepherd of souls? Anselm
adopted one view, Henry the other. A happy compromise, suggested by the
King’s statesmanship, healed the breach for the time being. The ring and
crozier, as badges of spiritual authority, were to be conferred only by
the Church, but each prelate must perform fealty to the King before
receiving these symbols, and must do homage thereafter, but before he
was actually anointed as bishop. Canonical election was nominally
conceded by the King; but here again a practical check was devised for
rendering this power innocuous. The members of the cathedral chapter
were confirmed in the theoretic right to appoint whom they pleased, but
such appointment must be made in the King’s Court or Chapel, thus
affording the powerful monarch full knowledge of the proceedings, and an
opportunity of being present and of practically forcing the selection of
his own candidate.
The Church gained much in power during Stephen’s reign, and deserved the
power it gained, since it remained the only stable centre of good
government, while all other institutions crumbled around it. It was not
unnatural that churchmen should advance new claims, and we find them
adopting the watchword, afterwards so famous, “that the Church should be
free,” a vague phrase doubtless, destined to be embodied in Magna Carta.
The extent of immunity thus claimed was never clearly defined, and this
vagueness was probably intentional, since an elastic phrase might be
expanded to keep pace with the ever-growing pretensions of the Church.
Churchmen made it clear, however, that they meant it to include at the
least two principles—those rights afterwards known as “benefit of
clergy,” and “canonical election” respectively.
Henry II.’s attempt to force a clear definition, embodied in the
Constitutions of Clarendon in 1164, signally failed, chiefly through the
miscarriage of his plans consequent on the murder of Becket. Yet the
rights of the Church, although remaining theoretically unaltered from
the days of Stephen, felt the pressure directed by Henry’s energetic arm
against all claims of privilege. Rights, theoretically the same, shrank
to smaller practical limits when measured against the strength of Henry
as compared with the weakness of Stephen. Canonical election thus
remained at the close of the reign of Henry II. the same farce it had
been in the days of Henry I. The “election” lay with the chapter of the
vacant See; but the king told them plainly whom to elect. The other
rights of the Church as actually enjoyed at the close of the reign of
Henry Plantagenet were not far different from what had been set down in
the Constitutions of Clarendon, although these never received formal
recognition by Canterbury or by Rome. So matters stood between Church
and State when the throne of England was bequeathed by Henry to his
sons. It remained for John’s rash provocation, followed by his quick and
cowardly retreat, to compel a new definition of the frontier between the
spiritual and the temporal powers.
IV. Richard I. and John.
Henry II. before his death had fulfilled the task of restoring order, to
which destiny had called him. To effect this, he had brought to
perfection machinery of government of rare excellence, and equally well
adapted for purposes of taxation, of dispensing justice, and of general
administration. Great as was the power for good of this new instrument
in the hands of a wise and justice-loving king, it was equally powerful
for evil in the hands of an arrogant and unjust, or even of a careless
monarch. All the old enemies of the Crown had been crushed. Local
government, as now systematized, formed a source of strength, not of
weakness; while the Church, whose highest offices were now filled with
officials trained in Henry’s own Household and Exchequer (ecclesiastics
in name only, differing widely from saintly monks like Anselm), still
remained the fast friend of the Crown. The monarchy was strong enough to
defy any one section of the nation, and no inclination was yet apparent
among the estates of the realm to make common cause against the throne.
The very thoroughness with which the Crown had surmounted all its early
difficulties, induced in Henry’s successors, men born in the purple, an
exaggerated feeling of security, and a tendency to overreach themselves
by excessive arrogance. At the same time, the very abjectness of the
various factors of the nation, now prostrate beneath the heel of the
Crown, prepared them to sink their mutual suspicions and to form a tacit
alliance in order to join issue with their common oppressor. Powers used
moderately and on the whole for national ends by Henry, were abused for
purely selfish ends by his sons in succession. Richard’s heavy taxation
and contemptuous indifference to English interests gradually reconciled
men’s minds to thoughts of change, and prepared the basis of a combined
opposition to a power which threatened to grind all other powers to
powder.
In no direction were these abuses felt so severely as in taxation.
Financial machinery had been elaborated to perfection, and large
additional sums could be squeezed from every class in the nation by an
extra turn of the screw. Richard did not even require to incur the odium
of this, since the ministers, who were his instruments, shielded him
from the unpopularity of his measures, while he pursued his own good
pleasure abroad in war and tournament without even condescending to
visit the subjects he oppressed. Twice only, for a few months in each
case, did Richard visit England during a reign of ten years.
In his absence new methods of taxation were devised, and new classes of
property subjected to it; in especial, personal effects—merchandise and
other chattels—only once before (in 1187 for the Saladin tithe) placed
under contribution, were now made a regular source of royal revenue. The
isolated precedent of Henry’s reign was gladly followed when an
extraordinarily heavy burden had to be borne by the nation to produce
the ransom exacted for Richard’s release from prison. The very
heartiness with which England made sacrifices to succour the Monarch in
his hour of need, was turned against the tax-payers. Richard showed no
gratitude; and, being devoid of all kindly interest in his subjects, he
argued that what had been paid once might equally well be paid again.
Thus he formed exaggerated notions of the revenue to be extracted from
England. From abroad he sent demand after demand to his overworked
justiciars for ever-increasing sums of money. The chief lessons of the
reign are connected with this excessive taxation, and the consequent
discontent which prepared the way for the new grouping of political
forces under John.
Some minor lessons may be noted:
(1) In Richard’s absence the odium for his exactions fell upon his
ministers at home, who thus bore the burden meet for his own callous
shoulders, while he enjoyed an undeserved popularity by reason of his
bravery and achievements, exaggerated as these were by the halo of
romance which surrounds a distant hero. Thus may be traced some dim
foreshadowing of the doctrine of ministerial responsibility, although
such analogies with modern politics must not be pushed too far.
(2) Throughout the reign, many parts of Henry’s system, technical
details of taxation and reforms in the administration of justice, were
elaborated by Archbishop Hubert Walter. Principles closely connected
with trial by jury on the one hand and with election and representation
on the other were being quietly developed—destined to play an important
rôle in other ages.
(3) Richard is sometimes said to have inaugurated the golden age of
municipalities. Undoubtedly many charters still extant bear witness to
the lavish hand with which he granted, on paper at least, franchises and
privileges to the nascent towns. John Richard Green finds the true
interest of the reign not in the King’s Crusades and French wars, so
much as in his fostering care over the growth of municipal enterprise.
The importance of the consequences of such a policy is not diminished by
the fact that Richard acted from sordid motives—selling privileges, too
often of a purely nominal character, as he sold everything else which
would fetch a price.
The death of Richard on 6th April, 1199, brought with it at least one
important change; England was no longer to be governed by an absentee.
John, as impatient of control as he was incompetent, endeavoured to
shake himself free from the restraints of powerful ministers, and
determined to conduct the work of government in his own way. The result
was an abrupt end to the progress made in the previous reign towards
ministerial responsibility. The odium formerly exhausting itself on the
justiciars of Richard was now expended on John. While, previously, men
had sought redress in a change of minister, such vain expectations could
no longer deceive. A new element of bitterness was added to injuries
long resented, and the nobles who felt the pinch of heavy taxation were
compelled to seek redress in an entirely new direction. All the forces
of discontent played openly around the throne.
As is usual at the opening of a new reign, the discontented hoped that a
change of sovereign would bring some relief. The excessive taxation of
the late reign had been the result of exceptional circumstances. It was
expected that the new King would revert to the less burdensome scale of
his father’s financial measures. Such hopes were quickly disappointed.
John’s needs proved as great as Richard’s, and the money he obtained was
used for purposes that appealed to no one but himself. The excessive
exactions demanded both in money and in service, coupled with the
unpopular uses to which these were put, form the keynote of the whole
reign. They form also the background of Magna Carta.
The reign falls naturally into three periods; the years in which John
waged a losing war with the King of France (1199-1206), the quarrel with
the Pope (1206-13), the great struggle of John with the barons
(1213-16).
The first seven years were for England comparatively uneventful, except
in the gradual deepening of disgust with John and all his ways. The
continental dominions were ripe for losing, and John precipitated the
catastrophe by his injustice and dilatoriness. The ease with which
Normandy was lost shows something more than the incapacity of the King
as a ruler and leader—John Softsword as contemporary writers
contemptuously call him. It shows that the feudal army of Normandy had
come to regard the English Sovereign as an alien monarch, and refused to
fight in support of the rule of a foreigner. The unwillingness of the
English nobles to succour John actively has also its significance. The
descendants of the men who helped William I. to conquer England had now
lost all interest in the land from which they came. They were now purely
English landowners, and very different from the original Norman baronage
whose interests, like their estates, had been equally divided on both
sides of the Channel.
The death of Archbishop Hubert Walter in July, 1205, deprived King John
of the services of the most experienced statesman in England. It did
more, for it marked the termination of the long friendship between the
English Crown and the National Church. Its immediate effect was to
create a vacancy, the filling of which led to a bitter quarrel with
Rome.
John failed, as usual, to recognize the merits of abler men, and saw in
the death of his great Justiciar and Archbishop only the removal of an
unwelcome restraint, and the opening to the Crown of a desirable piece
of patronage. He prepared to strain to the utmost his rights in the
election of a successor to the See of Canterbury, in favour of one of
his own creatures, a certain John de Grey, already by royal influence
Bishop of Norwich. Unexpected opposition to his will was offered by the
canons of the Cathedral Church, who determined on a bold policy, namely,
to turn their nominal right of canonical election into a reality, and to
appoint their own nominee, without waiting either for the King’s
approval or the co-operation of the suffragan bishops of the Province,
who, during the last three vacancies, had put forth a claim to
participate in the election, and had invariably used their influence on
behalf of the King’s nominee. Reginald, the sub-prior, was secretly
elected by the monks, and hurried abroad to obtain confirmation at Rome
before the appointment was made public. Reginald’s vanity prevented his
keeping his pledge of secrecy, and a rumour reached the ear of John, who
brought pressure to bear on the monks, now frightened at their own
temerity, and secured de Grey’s appointment in a second election. The
Bishop of Norwich was actually enthroned at Canterbury, and invested by
the King with the temporalities of the See. All parties now sent
representatives to Rome. This somewhat petty squabble benefited none of
the original disputants; for the astute Innocent III. was quick to see
an opportunity for papal aggrandisement. Both elections were set aside
by decree of the Papal Curia, and the emissaries of the various parties
were coerced or persuaded to appoint there and then in the Pope’s
presence the Pope’s own nominee, a certain Cardinal, English-born, but
hitherto little known in England, Stephen Langton by name, destined to
play an important part in the future history of the land of his birth.
John refused to view this triumph of papal arrogance in the light of a
compromise—the view diplomatically suggested by Innocent. The King, with
the hot blood common to his race, and the bad judgment peculiar to
himself, rushed headlong into a quarrel with Rome which he was incapable
of carrying to a successful issue. The details of the struggle, the
interdicts and excommunications hurled by the Pope, and John’s measures
of retaliation against the unfortunate English clergy, need not be
discussed, since they do not directly affect the main plot which
culminated at Runnymede.
John was not without some measure of sagacity of a selfish and
short-sighted sort, but was completely devoid of far-seeing statecraft.
One day he was to reap the fruits of this quarrel in bitter humiliation
and in the defeat of his most cherished aims; but, for the moment, the
breach with Rome seemed to lead to a triumph for the King. The papal
encroachments furnished him with a suitable pretext for confiscating the
property of the clergy. Thus his Exchequer was amply replenished, while
he was able for a time to conciliate his most inveterate opponents, the
Northern barons, by remitting during several years the hated burden of a
scutage, which, in other periods of his reign, tended to become a yearly
imposition. John had no intention, however, to forego his right to
resume the practice of annual scutages whenever it suited him to do so.
On the contrary, he executed a measure intended to make them more
remunerative in the future. This was the great Inquest of Service
ordered on 1st June, 1212.[4]
-----
Footnote 4:
See Round, _Commune of London_, 273. This measure is discussed _infra_
pp. 91-2.
-----
During these years, however, John temporarily relaxed the pressure on
his feudal tenants. His doing so failed to gain back any of their
goodwill, while he broadened the basis of future resistance by shifting
his oppressions to the clergy and through them to the poor.
Some incidents of the autumn of 1212 require brief notice, as well from
their own inherent interest as because they find an echo in the words of
Magna Carta. Serious trouble had arisen with Wales. Llywelyn (who had
married John’s natural daughter Joan, and had consolidated his power
under protection of the English King) now seized the occasion to cross
the border, while John was preparing his schemes for a new continental
expedition. The King changed his plans, and prepared to lead his troops
to Wales instead of France. A muster was summoned for September at
Nottingham, and John went thither to meet them. Before tasting meat, as
we are told in Roger of Wendover’s graphic narrative, he hanged
twenty-eight Welsh hostages, boys of noble family, whom he held as
sureties that Llywelyn would keep the peace.[5]
-----
Footnote 5:
R. Wendover, III. 239.
-----
Almost immediately thereafter, two messengers arrived simultaneously
from Scotland and from Wales with unexpected tidings. John’s daughter,
Joan, and the King of Scots, each independently warned him that his
English barons were prepared to revolt, under shelter of the Pope’s
absolution from their allegiance, and either to slay him or betray him
to the Welsh. The King dared not afford them so good an opportunity. In
a panic he disbanded the feudal levies; and, accompanied only by his
mercenaries, moved slowly back to London.[6]
-----
Footnote 6:
W. Coventry, II. 207; R. Wendover, III. 239.
-----
Two of the barons, Robert Fitz-Walter, afterwards the Marshal of the
army which, later on, opposed John at Runnymede, and Eustace de Vesci,
showed their knowledge of John’s suspicions (if they did not justify
them) by withdrawing secretly from his Court and taking to flight. The
King caused them to be outlawed in their absence, and thereafter seized
their estates and demolished their castles.[7]
-----
Footnote 7:
From their possible connection with the wording of the famous chapter
39 of Magna Carta, it may be worth while to quote the exact words in
which Ralph de Coggeshall, _Chronicon Anglicanum_, p. 165, describes
this event, which he places (probably wrongly) in the year 1213.—“Rex
Eustachium de Vesci et Robertum filium Walteri, in comitatibus tertio
requisitos, cum eorum fautoribus utlaghiari fecit, castra eorum
subvertit, praedia occupavit.”
-----
These events of September, 1212, rudely shook John out of the false
sense of security in which he had wrapped himself a few months earlier.
In the Spring of the same year, he had still seemed to enjoy the full
tide of prosperity; and he must have been a bold prophet who dared to
foretell, as Peter of Wakefield did foretell, the speedy downfall of the
King—a prophecy the main purport of which (although not the details),
was actually accomplished.[8]
-----
Footnote 8:
See Miss Norgate, _John Lackland_, 170, and authorities there cited.
-----
John’s apparent security was deceptive; he had underestimated the powers
arrayed against him. Before the end of that year he had realized, in a
sudden flash of illumination, that the Pope was too strong for him,
circumstanced as he then was. It may well be that, if John’s throne had
rested on a solid basis of his subjects’ love, he might have defied with
impunity the thunders of Rome; but, although he was still an
unrestrained despot, his despotism now rested on a hollow foundation.
His barons, particularly the eager spirits of the north, refrained from
open rebellion merely until a fit opportunity should be offered them.
The papal excommunication of a King relieved his subjects of their oaths
of allegiance, and this might render their deliberate revolt dangerous
and perhaps fatal. At this critical juncture Innocent played his leading
card, inviting the King of France to act as the executor of the sentence
of excommunication against his brother King. John at once realized that
the time had come to make his peace with Rome.
Perhaps we should admire the sudden inspiration which showed the King
that his game had been played and lost, while we regret the humiliation
of his surrender, and the former blindness which could not see a little
way ahead.
On 13th May, 1213, John met Pandulf, the papal legate, and accepted
unconditionally his demands, the same which he had refused
contemptuously some months before. Full reparation was to be made to the
Church. Stephen Langton was to be received as archbishop in all honour
with his banished bishops, friends and kinsmen. All church property was
to be restored, with compensation for damage done. One of the minor
conditions of John’s absolution was the restoration to Eustace de Vesci
and Robert Fitz-Walter of the estates which they persuaded Innocent had
been forfeited because of their loyalty to Rome.[9]
-----
Footnote 9:
_Ibid._, 292–3.
-----
John’s humiliation did not stop even here. Two days later he resigned
the Crowns of England and Ireland, and received them again as the Pope’s
feudatory, promising to perform personal homage should occasion allow.
Such was the price which the King was now ready to pay for the Pope’s
active alliance against his enemies at home and abroad, the former
submission having merely bought off the excommunication. John hoped thus
to disentangle himself from his growing difficulties, and so to be free
to avenge himself on his baronial enemies. The surrender of the Crown
was embodied in a formal legal document which bears to be made by John,
“with the common council of our barons.” Were these merely words of
form? They may have been so when first used; yet two years later the
envoys of the insurgent barons claimed at Rome that the credit (so they
now represented it) for the whole transaction lay with them. Perhaps the
barons did consent to the surrender, thinking that to make the Pope lord
paramount of England would protect the inhabitants from the
irresponsible tyranny of John; while John hoped (with better reason as
events proved) that the Pope’s friendship would increase his ability to
work his evil will upon his enemies. In any case, no active opposition
or protest seems to have been raised by any one at the time of the
surrender. This step, so repugnant to later writers, seems not to have
been regarded by contemporaries as a disgrace. Matthew Paris, indeed,
writing in the next generation, describes it as “a thing to be detested
for all time”; but then events had ripened in Matthew’s day, and he was
a keen politician rather than an impartial onlooker.[10]
-----
Footnote 10:
The late Cardinal Manning in an article in the _Contemporary Review_
for December, 1875 (since published in book form), on the Pope and
Magna Carta, insists, probably with reason, that contemporary opinion
saw nothing disgraceful in the surrender, rather the reverse.
-----
Stephen Langton, now assured of a welcome to the high office into which
he had been thrust against John’s will, landed at Dover and was received
by the King at Winchester on 20th July, 1213. John swore on the Gospels
to cherish and defend Holy Church, to restore the good laws of Edward,
and to render to all men their rights, repeating practically the words
of the coronation oath. In addition, he promised to make reparation for
all property taken from the Church or churchmen. This oath, with its
accompanying promise, was the condition on which he was to be absolved,
provisionally by Langton, and more formally by a legate, to be sent from
Rome specially for that purpose.
V. The Years of Crisis, 1213–15.
For a brief season after John had made his peace with Rome, he seemed to
enjoy substantial fruits of his diplomacy. Once more the short-sighted
character of his abilities was illustrated; a brief triumph led to a
deeper fall. The King for the moment considered, with some show of
reason, that he had regained the mastery of his enemies at home and
abroad. Philip’s threatened invasion had to be abandoned; the people
renewed their allegiance on the removal of the papal sentence; the
barons had to reconcile themselves as best they could, awaiting a better
opportunity to rebel. If John had confined himself to home affairs, he
might have postponed the final explosion: he could not, however,
reconcile himself to the loss of the great continental heritage of his
ancestors. His attempts to recover Normandy and Anjou, partly by force
of arms and partly by a great coalition, led to new exactions and new
murmurings, while they ended in complete failure, which left him,
discredited and penniless, at the mercy of the malcontents at home.
His projected campaign in Poitou would require all the levies he could
raise. More than once John demanded, and his barons refused, their
feudal service. Many excuses were put forward. At first they declined to
follow a King who had not yet been fully absolved. Yet when Archbishop
Stephen, on 20th July, 1213, removed the papal censure from John at
Winchester, after exacting promises of good government, the northern
barons still refused. Their new plea was that the tenure on which they
held their lands did not compel them to serve abroad. They added that
they were already exhausted by expeditions within England.[11]
-----
Footnote 11:
R. Coggeshall, p. 167.
-----
John took this as open defiance, and determined, with troops at his back
(_per vim et arma_), to compel obedience.
Before his preparations were completed, an important assembly had met at
St. Albans (on 4th August) to make sworn inquest as to the extent of
damage done to churchmen during the years of John’s quarrel with Rome.
The meeting is notable, not merely because of the reason of its summons,
but also because of its composition. It is the earliest national council
in which the principle of representation received recognition (so far as
our records go).[12] Four lawful men, with the reeve, from each village
or manor on the royal demesne, were present, but only, it must be
remembered, in a very mean capacity—only to make a sworn inquest as to
the amount of damage done. Such inquests by the humble representatives
of the villages were quite common locally; the innovation lies in this,
that their verdict was now given in a national assembly. Directions were
issued in the King’s name from the same meeting, commanding sheriffs,
foresters, and others to observe the laws of Henry I. and to abstain
from unjust exactions, as they valued their limbs and lives.[13]
-----
Footnote 12:
Stubbs, _Const. Hist._, I. 566.
Footnote 13:
R. Wendover, III. 261-2.
-----
On 25th August, after John had set out with his mercenaries to punish by
force of arms the refusal of his northern magnates to follow him to the
Continent, as he held them bound to do in terms of their feudal
obligations, Stephen Langton held a meeting with the great men of the
south. Many bishops, abbots, priors and deans, together with some lay
magnates of the southern counties, met him at St. Paul’s, London. The
ostensible object of this assembly was to determine what use the
Archbishop should make of his power to grant partial relaxation of the
interdict still casting its blight over England—which could not be
finally lifted until the legate arrived with fuller powers. If we may
believe Roger of Wendover, more important business was transacted in the
King’s absence. Stephen reminded the magnates that John’s absolution had
been conditional on a promise of good government, and as a standard to
guide them in judging what such government implied, he produced a copy
of Henry I.’s Charter of Liberties. All present swore to “fight for
those liberties, if it were needful, even unto death.” The Archbishop
promised his help, “and a confederacy being thus made between them, the
conference was dissolved.”[14]
-----
Footnote 14:
Roger of Wendover, III. 263-6. Blackstone (_Great Charter_,
Introduction, p. vi.), makes the apposite comment that it seems
unlikely that the discovery by the Archbishop of a charter probably
already well known “should be a matter of such novelty and triumph.”
-----
Stephen Langton, however, desired a peaceable solution if possible, and
three days later we find him, after a somewhat hurried journey, at
Northampton, on the 28th of August, striving earnestly, and with
success, to avert civil war between John and the recalcitrant Crown
tenants in the north.
His line of argument is worthy of especial note. The King, he urged,
must not levy war on his subjects before he had obtained a legal
judgment against them. The substance of this advice should be compared
with the terms of chapter 39 of Magna Carta. John resented the
interference of Stephen in lay matters, and continued his march to
Nottingham; but threats of fresh excommunications caused him at length
to consent to substitute legal process for violence, and to appoint a
day for the trial of the defaulters before the _Curia Regis_—a trial
which never took place.[15]
-----
Footnote 15:
R. Wendover, III. 262-3.
-----
John apparently continued his journey as far north as Durham, but
returned to meet the new papal legate Nicholas, to whom he performed the
promised homage and repeated the formal act of surrender in St. Paul’s
on 3rd October.[16] Having thus completed his alliance with the Pope, he
was confident of worsting his enemies in France and England. As most, if
not all, of the great magnates were against him, he saw that it would be
well to strengthen his position by support of the class beneath them in
the feudal scheme of society. Perhaps it was this that led John to
broaden the basis of the national assembly. The great Council which met
at Oxford on 15th November, 1213, was made notable by the presence, in
addition to the Crown tenants, of representatives of the various
counties. The sheriffs, in the words of the King’s writs, were to cause
to assemble all knights already summoned (that is, the Crown tenants)
and four discreet men of each county “_ad loquendum nobiscum de negotiis
regni nostri_.” Miss Norgate[17] lays stress on the fact that these
writs were issued after the death of the great Justiciar Geoffrey
Fitz-Peter, and before any successor had been appointed. John, she
argues, acted on his own initiative, and is thus entitled to the credit
of being the first statesman to introduce representatives of the
counties into the national assembly. The importance of this precedent
need not be obscured by the selfish nature of the motives to which it
was due. Knights who were tenants of mesne lords (Miss Norgate says
“yeomen”) were invited to act as a counterpoise to the barons. This
innovation anticipated the line of progress afterwards followed by de
Montfort and Edward I. Compared with it, the often-praised provisions of
chapter 14 of Magna Carta must be regarded as antiquated and even
reactionary.
-----
Footnote 16:
The charter recording this act may be read in _New Rymer_, I. 115. It
was sealed not in perishable wax, but in solid gold.
Footnote 17:
_John Lackland_, 195.
-----
In the early spring of 1214, John considered his home troubles ended,
and that he was now free to use against France the coalition formed by
his diplomacy. He went abroad early in February, leaving Peter des
Roches, the unpopular Bishop of Winchester, to keep the peace as
Justiciar, and to guard his interests, in concert with the papal legate.
Although deserted by the northern barons, John relied partly on his
mercenaries, but chiefly on the Emperor Otto and his other powerful
allies. Fortune, always fickle, favoured him at first, only to ruin all
his schemes more completely in the end. The crash came on Sunday, 27th
July, 1214, when the King of France triumphed over the allies at the
decisive battle of Bouvines. Three months later, John was compelled to
sign a five years’ truce with Philip, abandoning all pretensions to
recover his continental dominions.
He had left enemies at home more dangerous than those who conquered him
at Bouvines—enemies who had been watching with trembling eagerness the
vicissitudes of his fortunes abroad. His earlier successes struck dismay
into the malcontents in England, apprehensive of the probable sequel to
his triumphant return home. They waited with anxiety, but not in
idleness, the culmination of his campaign, wisely refraining from open
rebellion until news reached them of his failure or success. Meanwhile,
they quietly organized their programme of reform and their measures of
resistance. John’s strenuous endeavours to exact money and service,
while failing to fill his Exchequer as he hoped, had ripened dormant
hostility into an active confederacy organized for resistance. When
England learned the result of the battle, the barons felt that the
moment for action had arrived.
Even while abroad, John had not relaxed his efforts to wring exactions
from England. Without consent or warning, he had imposed a scutage at
the unprecedented rate of three marks on the knight’s fee. Writs for its
collection had been issued on 26th May, 1214, an exception being indeed
allowed for tenants personally present in the King’s army in Poitou. The
northern barons, who had already refused to serve in person, now refused
likewise to pay the scutage. This repudiation was couched in words
particularly bold and sweeping; they denied liability to follow the King
not merely to Poitou, but to any part of the Continent.[18]
-----
Footnote 18:
See W. Coventry, II. 217, _dicentes se propter terras quas in Anglia
tenent non debere regem extra regnum sequi nec ipsum euntem scutagio
juvare_. The legality of this contention is discussed _infra_, pp.
83-6.
-----
When John returned, in the middle of October, 1214, he found himself
confronted with a crisis unique in English history. During his absence,
the opponents of his misrule had drawn together, formulated their
grievances, and matured their plans. The embarrassments on the Continent
which weakened the King, heartened the opposition. The northern barons
took the lead. Their cup of wrath, which had long been filling,
overflowed when the scutage of three marks was imposed. Within a
fortnight of his landing, John held an interview with the malcontents at
Bury St. Edmunds (on 4th November, 1214).[19] No compromise was arrived
at. John pressed for payment of the scutage, and the barons refused.
-----
Footnote 19:
See Miss Norgate, _John Lackland_, p. 221.
-----
It seems probable that, after John’s retiral, a conference of a more
private nature was held at which, under cloak of attending the Abbey for
prayer, a conspiracy against John was sworn. Roger of Wendover gives a
graphic account of what happened. The magnates came together “as if for
prayers; but there was something else in the matter, for after they had
held much secret discourse, there was brought forth in their midst the
charter of King Henry I., which the same barons had received in London
... from Archbishop Stephen of Canterbury.”[20] A solemn oath was taken
to withdraw their fealty (a threat actually carried into effect on 5th
May of the following year), and to wage war on the King, unless he
granted their liberties; and a date—soon after Christmas—was fixed for
making their formal demands. Meanwhile they separated to prepare for
war. The King also realized that a resort to arms was imminent. While
endeavouring to collect mercenaries, he tried unsuccessfully to sow
dissension among his opponents. In especial, he hoped to buy off the
hostility of the Church by a separate charter which he issued on 21st
November. This professes to be granted “of the common consent of our
barons.” Its object was to gratify the Church by turning canonical
election from a sham into a reality. The election of prelates, great and
small, should henceforward be really free in all cathedral and
conventual churches and monasteries, saving to the Crown the right of
wardship during vacancies. John promised never to deny or delay his
consent to an election, and conferred powers on the electors, if he
should do so, to proceed without him. The King was bitterly disappointed
in his hope that by this bribe he would bring over the national Church
from the barons’ side to his own.
-----
Footnote 20:
R. Wendover, III. 293.
-----
John was probably well aware of what took place at St. Edmunds after he
had left, and he also knew that the close of the year was the time fixed
for the making of demands. He held what must have been an anxious
Christmas at Worcester (always a favourite resting-place of this King),
but tarried only for a day, hastening to the Temple, London, where the
proximity of the Tower would give him a feeling of security. There, on
6th January, 1215, a deputation from the insurgents met him without
disguising that their demands were backed by force. These demands, they
told him, included the confirmation of the laws of King Edward, with the
liberties set forth in Henry’s Charter.
On the advice of the Archbishop and the Marshal, who acted as mediators,
John asked a truce till Easter, which was granted in return for the
promise that he would then give reasonable satisfaction. The Archbishop,
the Marshal, and the Bishop of Ely were named as the King’s securities.
On 15th January, John re-issued the Charter to the Church, and demanded
a renewal of homage from all his subjects. The sheriffs in each county
were instructed to administer the oath in a specially stringent form;
all Englishmen must now swear to “stand by him against all men.”
Meanwhile emissaries were dispatched by both sides to Rome. Eustace de
Vesci, as spokesman of the malcontents, asked Innocent, as overlord of
England, to compel John to restore the ancient liberties, and claimed
consideration on the ground that John’s surrender to the Pope had been
made under pressure put on the King by them—all to no effect. John
thought to propitiate the Pope by taking the cross, a politic measure
(the date of which is given by one authority as 2nd February, and by
another as 4th March), which would also serve to protect him against
personal violence, and which afforded him, as is well illustrated by
several chapters of Magna Carta, a fertile excuse for delay in remedying
abuses. In April, the northern barons, convinced that the moment for
action had arrived, met in arms at Stamford, and after Easter (when the
truce had expired) marched southward to Brackley, in Northampton. There
they were met, on 27th April, by the Archbishop and the Marshal, as
emissaries from the King, who demanded what they wanted. They received
in reply, and took back with them to John, a certain schedule, which
consisted for the most part of ancient laws and customs of the realm,
with an added threat that if the King did not immediately adhibit his
seal the rebels would constrain him by seizing his castles, lands, and
goods.[21]
-----
Footnote 21:
R. Wendover, III. 298.
-----
This schedule may be regarded as a rough draft of the document more
fully drawn out six weeks later, commonly known as the Articles of the
Barons.[22]
-----
Footnote 22:
Is it not possible that the so-called “unknown charter of Liberties”
(see _infra_ under Part V. and Appendix) was the very schedule
mentioned by Wendover? It was drawn up in the form of a charter, so as
to be ready for the immediate imprint of the seal they demanded.
-----
John’s answer, when he read these demands, was emphatic. “Why do not the
barons, with these unjust exactions, ask my kingdom?” Then furious, he
declared with an oath that he would never grant them such liberties,
whereby he would make himself a slave.[23]
-----
Footnote 23:
R. Wendover, III. 298.
-----
On 5th May the barons formally renounced allegiance[24] and chose as
commander, Robert Fitz-Walter, who styled himself piously and
grandiloquently, “Marshal of the army of God and Holy Church.”
-----
Footnote 24:
Blackstone, _Great Charter_, p. xiii., citing the _Annals of
Dunstable_ (p. 43), says they were absolved at Wallingford by a Canon
of Durham.
-----
The insurgents, still shivering on the brink of civil war, delayed to
march southwards. Much would depend on the attitude of London, with its
wealth and central position; and John bade high for the support of its
citizens. On 9th May a new charter[25] was granted to the Londoners, who
now received a long-coveted privilege, the right to elect their mayor
annually and to remove him at the year’s end. This marked the
culmination of a long series of progressive grants in their favour.
Previously the mayor had held office for life, and Henry Fitz-Aylwin,
the earliest holder of the office (appointed perhaps in 1191), had died
in 1213.
-----
Footnote 25:
The Charter appears _Rot. Chart._, p. 207. _Cf._ under chapter 13
_infra_, where the rights of the Londoners are discussed.
-----
Apparently no price was paid for this charter; but John doubtless
expected in return the grateful support of the Londoners, exactly as he
had expected the support of churchmen when he twice granted a charter in
their favour. In both instances he was disappointed. Next day he made,
probably as a measure of delay, an offer of arbitration to the barons.
In the full tide of military preparations, he issued a writ in these
words: "Know that we have conceded to our barons who are against us that
we shall not take or disseise them or their men, nor go against them
_per vim vel per arma_, unless by the law of our land, or by the
judgment of their peers _in curia nostra_, until consideration shall
have been made by four whom we shall choose on our part and four whom
they shall choose on their part, and the lord Pope who shall be oversman
over them"—words worthy of careful comparison with those used in chapter
39 of Magna Carta. The offer could not be taken seriously, since it left
the decision of every vital issue virtually to the Pope, whom the barons
distrusted.[26]
-----
Footnote 26:
The writ is given in _Rot. Pat._, 1. 141, and also in _New Rymer_, I.
128.
-----
Another royal writ, of two days later date, shows a rapid change of
policy, doubtless due to the contemptuous rejection of arbitration. On
12th May, John ordered the sheriffs to do precisely what he had offered
not to do. They were told to take violent measures against the rebels
without waiting for a “judgment of peers” or other formality. Lands,
goods, and chattels of the King’s enemies were to be seized and applied
to his benefit.[27]
-----
Footnote 27:
For writ, see _Rot. Claus._, 204.
-----
The barons, rejecting all offers, marched by Northampton, Bedford, and
Ware, towards the capital. London, in spite of the charter received
eight days earlier, boldly threw in its lot with the insurgents, to whom
it opened its gates on 17th May.[28] The example of London was quickly
followed by other towns and by many hesitating nobles. The confederates
felt strong enough to issue letters to all who still adhered to the
King, bidding them forsake him on pain of forfeiture.
-----
Footnote 28:
Some authorities give 24th May as the date. It must have been the
17th; since _New Rymer_, p. 121, under the date of 18th May, prints a
writ of John, informing Rowland Blaot of the surrender of London to
the barons. This was followed on 20th May (_N.R._, p. 121) by another
royal writ, ordering all bailiffs and other faithful, to molest the
Londoners in every way possible.
-----
John found himself, for the moment, without power of effective
resistance; and, probably with the view of gaining time rather than of
committing himself irretrievably to any abatement of his prerogatives,
agreed to meet his opponents. As a preliminary to this, on 8th June he
issued a safe-conduct for the barons’ representatives to meet him at
Staines within the three days following. This was apparently too short
notice, as on 10th June, John, now at Windsor, granted an extension of
the time and safe-conduct till Monday, 15th June. William the Marshal
and other envoys were dispatched from Windsor to the barons in London
with what was practically a message of surrender. The barons were told
that John “would freely accede to the laws and liberties which they
asked,” if they would appoint a place and day for a meeting. The
intermediaries, in the words of Roger of Wendover,[29] "without guile
carried back to the barons the message which had been guilefully imposed
on them"—implying that John meant to make no promises, except such as
were insincere. Yet the barons, _immenso fluctuantes gaudio_, fixed as
the time of meeting the last day of the extended truce, Monday, 15th
June, at a certain meadow between Staines and Windsor, known as
Runnymede.
-----
Footnote 29:
III. 301.
-----
VI. Runnymede, and after.
On 15th June the King and the Barons met. On the side of the insurgents
appeared a great host; on the monarch’s, merely a small band of
magnates, loyal to the person of the King, but only half-hearted, at the
best, in his support. Their names may be read in the preamble to the
Charter: the chief among them, Stephen Langton, still nominally neutral,
was known to be in full sympathy with the rebels.
Dr. Stubbs,[30] maintaining that the whole baronage of England was
implicated in these stirring events, gives a masterly analysis of its
more conspicuous members into four great groups: (1) the Northumbrani or
Norenses of the chroniclers, names famous in the northern counties, who
had been the first to raise the standard of open revolt, and retained
the lead throughout; (2) the other nobles from all parts of England, who
had shown themselves ready from an early date to co-operate with the
Northerners—“the great baronial families that had been wise enough to
cast away the feudal aspirations of their forefathers, and the rising
houses which had sprung from the ministerial nobility”; (3) the moderate
party who, ready to worship the rising sun, deserted John after London
had joined the rebels, including even the King’s half-brother (the Earl
of Salisbury), the loyal Marshal, Hubert de Burgh, and other ministers
of the Crown, whose names may be read in the preamble to the Charter;
and (4) the tools of John’s misgovernment, mostly men of foreign birth,
tied to John by motives of interest as well as by personal loyalty,
since their differences with the baronial leaders lay too deep for
reconciliation, most of whom are branded by name in Magna Carta as for
ever incapable of holding office in the realm. These men of desperate
fortunes alone remained whole-hearted on John’s side when the crisis
came.[31]
-----
Footnote 30:
_Const. Hist._, I. 581-3.
Footnote 31:
The individual names may be read in Stubbs, _Ibid._; and readers in
search of biographical knowledge are referred to Bémont, _Chartes_,
39–40, and for fuller, though less reliable information, to Thomson,
_Magna Charta_, 270–322.
-----
When the conference began, the fourth group was not near John, being
otherwise occupied in the command of castle garrisons or of troops
actually in the field; the third group, a small one, was with him; and
the first and second groups were, in their imposing strength, arrayed
against him.
Unfortunately, the vagueness of contemporary accounts prevents us from
reproducing with certainty the progress of negotiations on that eventful
15th of June and the few days following. Some inferences, however, may
be drawn from the words of the completed Charter itself and from those
of several closely related documents. One of these, the Articles of the
Barons,[32] is sometimes supposed to be identical in its terms with the
Schedule which had been already presented to the King’s emissaries, at
Brackley, on the 27th of April.[33] It is more probable, however, that
during the seven eventful weeks which had since elapsed, the original
demands had been somewhat modified. It is not unlikely that the interval
had been employed in making the terms of the suggested agreement more
full and specific. The Schedule of April was probably only a rough draft
of the Articles as we know them, and these formed in their turn the new
draft on which the completed Charter was based. Articles and Charter are
alike authenticated with the impress of the King’s great seal, an
indisputable proof that the terms of each of them actually received his
official consent.
-----
Footnote 32:
See Appendix.
Footnote 33:
See _supra_, p. 40.
-----
This fact affords a strong presumption that an interval must have
elapsed between the King’s acceptance of the first and the final
completion of the second; since it would have been absurd to seal what
was practically a draft at the same time as the principal instrument.
The probability of such an interval must not be lost sight of in any
attempt to reconstruct in chronological sequence the stages of the
negotiations at Runnymede.
A few undoubted facts form a starting-point on which inferences may be
based. John’s headquarters were fixed at Windsor from Monday, 15th June,
to the afternoon of Tuesday the 23rd. On each of these nine days (with
the possible exception of the 16th and 17th) he visited Runnymede to
confer with the barons.[34]
-----
Footnote 34:
So far there can be no doubt. Either on the _Close Rolls_ or on the
_Patent Rolls_ (q.v.) copies of one or more writs are preserved dated
from Windsor on each of these days, and also one or more dated from
Runnymede on 15th, 18th, 19th, 20th, 21st, 22nd, and 23rd June.
-----
Two crucial stages in these negotiations were clearly reached on Monday
the 15th (the date borne by Magna Carta itself) and on Friday the 19th
(the day on which John in more than one writ stated that peace had been
concluded). What happened exactly on each of these two days is, however,
to some extent, matter of conjecture. It is here maintained, with some
confidence, that on Monday the substance of the barons’ demands was
provisionally accepted and that the Articles were then sealed; while on
Friday this arrangement was finally confirmed and Magna Carta itself, in
several duplicates, was sealed.
To justify these inferences, a more detailed examination of the evidence
available will be necessary. The earliest meeting between John and the
baronial leaders, all authorities are agreed, took place on Monday, 15th
June, probably in the early morning. The barons undoubtedly came to the
conference provided with an accurate list of those grievances which they
were determined to have redressed. On the previous 27th of April the
rebels had sent a written Schedule to the King, along with a demand that
he should signify his acceptance by affixing his seal;[35] they are not
likely to have been less fully prepared on 15th June.
-----
Footnote 35:
R. Wendover, III. 298.
-----
John, on his part, would naturally try a policy of evasions and delays;
and, when these were clearly useless, would then endeavour to secure
modifications of the terms offered. These tactics met with no success.
His opponents demanded a plain acceptance of their plainly expressed
demands. Before nightfall, John, overawed by their firmness and by the
numbers of the armed force behind them, was constrained to surrender.
Leaving minor points of detail to be subsequently adjusted, he
provisionally accepted the substance of the long list of reforms put
before him by the barons, on the understanding that they would renew
their allegiance and give him some security that they would keep the
peace. In proof of this bargain, the heads of the agreement were rapidly
engrossed on parchment to the number of forty-nine, and the great seal
was impressed on the wax of the label, where it may still be seen.[36]
-----
Footnote 36:
In the British Museum. See _infra_ under Part V.
-----
The parchment containing these Articles of the Barons may have been the
identical Schedule actually prepared by the rebel leaders previous to
the meeting; but, more probably, it was written out at Runnymede during
the conference on the 15th (or between two conferences on that day) by
one of the clerks of the royal Chancery. This is more in keeping with
its heading (written in the same hand, and apparently at the same time
as the body of the deed), _Ista sunt capitula quae barones petunt et
dominus rex concedit_.
Likely enough, it followed closely the words of the baronial Schedule;
but it may have contained some slight modifications in favour of the
Crown. One such, at least, was inserted, apparently as an afterthought
(on the intervention of the King perhaps, or one of his friends);
articles 45 and 46, as originally conceived, have been subsequently
connected by a rude bracket, and a qualifying proviso added which
practically bestowed on the Archbishop the powers of an arbitrator to
determine whether both articles should be altered in favour of the Crown
or no.[37] The entire document is in a running hand, and appears to have
been rapidly though carefully written. Its engrossment upon parchment
with a quill pen must have occupied several hours; but a diligent
copyist would not find it beyond his powers to complete the task in one
day.
-----
Footnote 37:
Cf. Blackstone, _Great Charter_, xvii.: "subjoined in a more hasty
hand, ... as if added at the instance of the King’s commissioners upon
more mature deliberation."
-----
Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday were consumed in further negotiations as
to matters of detail; in reducing the heads of agreement already
accepted to the more binding form of a feudal charter; and in engrossing
several copies for greater security. Everything was, however, ready for
a final settlement on Friday the 19th. At the conference held on that
day the conclusion of the final concord probably included several steps;
among others, the nomination by the opposition, with the King’s tacit
acquiescence, of twenty-five barons to act as Executors under chapter
61,[38] the solemn sealing and delivery of several original copies of
the Great Charter in its final form, the taking of an oath by all
parties to abide by its provisions, and the issue of the first batch of
writs of instructions to the sheriffs.
-----
Footnote 38:
See _infra_ under that chapter.
-----
Blackstone[39] thinks that the barons on that day renewed their oaths of
fealty and homage. It is more probable that, until John had actually
carried out the more pressing reforms promised in Magna Carta, they
refused formally to swear allegiance, undertaking, however, in the
hearing of the two archbishops and other prelates, that they would keep
the peace and furnish security to that effect in any form that John
might name, except only by delivery of their castles or of hostages.[40]
-----
Footnote 39:
_Great Charter_, p. xxiv.
Footnote 40:
See Protest of Archbishops _infra_, p. 52.
-----
The statement that Friday, 19th June, was the day on which peace was
finally concluded rests on unmistakable evidence. On 21st June, John
wrote from Windsor to William of Cantilupe, one of his captains,
instructing him not to enforce payment of any unpaid balances of
“tenseries”[41] demanded since the preceding Friday, “on which day peace
was made between the King and his barons.”[42]
-----
Footnote 41:
Mr. Round explains this word in a learned appendix (_Geoffrey de
Mandeville_, p. 414) to mean “blackmail,” _i.e._ “money extorted under
pretence of protection or defence.”
Footnote 42:
See _Rot. Claus._, p. 225 (17 John membrane 31). The evidence of this
writ does not stand alone. In another writ on the same membrane of the
_Close Rolls_, dated 19th June, John informs his half-brother, the
Earl of Salisbury, that he has concluded peace, and instructs him to
restore certain lands and castles immediately, as this had been made a
condition of peace. See also the writ to Stephen Harengod _infra_, p.
49.
-----
It has been taken for granted by many historians that the peace was
finally concluded, and the Great Charter actually sealed and issued on
the 15th, not on the 19th.[43] The fact that all four copies of Magna
Carta still extant bear this date seems to have been regarded as
absolutely conclusive on this point. Experts in diplomatics, however,
have long been aware that elaborate charters and other documents, which
occupied a considerable time in preparation, usually bore the date, not
of their actual execution, but of the day on which were concluded the
transactions of which they form the record. Legal instruments were thus
commonly ante-dated (as it would be reckoned according to modern legal
practice). Thus it is far from safe to infer from Magna Carta’s mention
of its own date that the great seal was actually adhibited on the 15th
June.
-----
Footnote 43:
Blackstone, however (_Great Charter_, xv.), speaks of a “conference
which lasted for several days, and did not come to a conclusion till
Friday, the 19th June.”
-----
Such presumption as exists points the other way. The Great Charter is a
lengthy and elaborate document, and it is barely possible that any one
of the four originals known to us could have been engrossed (to say
nothing of the adjustment of the substance and form) within one day. Not
only is it much longer than the Articles on which it is founded; but
even the most casual comparison will convince any unbiassed mind of the
slower rate of engrossment of the Charter. All four copies show marks of
great deliberation, while those at Lincoln and Salisbury in particular
are exquisite models of leisurely and elaborate penmanship. The highly
finished initial letters of the first line and other ornamental features
may be instructively compared with the plain, business-like, rapid hand
of the Articles. How many additional copies now lost were once in
existence bearing the same date, it is impossible to say; but each of
those still extant may well have occupied four days in the writing.[44]
-----
Footnote 44:
Miss Norgate, _John Lackland_, p. 234, acquiesces in the view
generally received, fixing Monday as the day on which the final
concord was arrived at, but she relies for evidence on a more than
doubtful interpretation of what is undoubtedly an error in the copy of
a writ by King John appearing on the _Patent Rolls_. This writ, which
as copied in the _Rolls_ bears to be dated 18th June (erroneously as
will immediately be shown), is addressed to Stephen Harengod (in terms
closely resembling those of the writ already cited from the _Close
Rolls_ addressed to William of Cantilupe), announcing _inter alia_
that terms of peace had been agreed upon “last Friday.” Miss Norgate
contends with reason that there must be a mistake somewhere, since on
the Friday preceding the 18th, negotiations had not even begun. She is
confident that "the ‘die Veneris’ which occurs three times in the writ
is in each case an unquestionable, though unaccountable, error for
‘die Lunae.’" Yet, it is unlikely that a scribe writing three days
after so momentous an event could have mistaken the day of the week.
It is infinitely more probable that in writing xxiij. he formed the
second “x” so carelessly that it was mistaken by the enrolling clerk
for a “v.” The correct date is thus the 23rd, and the reference is to
Friday the 19th. This presumption becomes a certainty by comparison
with the words of the writ to William of Cantilupe, dated the 21st (of
the existence of which Miss Norgate was probably not aware).
A comparison between the two documents shows few changes of importance
in the tenor.[45]
-----
Footnote 45:
Blackstone, _Great Charter_, xviii., has given a careful analysis of
the points of difference.
-----
The one outstanding addition is the insertion, in an emphatic form, both
at the beginning and at the end of the Charter, of a general declaration
in favour of the freedom and rights of the Church. The inference seems
to be that a new influence was brought to bear, between the preparation
of the draft and that of the Charter. It was the Archbishop of
Canterbury and his friends who thus converted the original baronial
manifesto into something more nearly resembling a declaration of rights
for the nation at large. One or two minor alterations seem slightly to
benefit the Crown,[46] while several others, rightly viewed, suggest an
influence at work unfavourable to the towns and trading classes.[47]
-----
Footnote 46:
_E.g._ chapters 48 and 52. For alterations directed against the
trading classes, see chapters 12, 13, 35, and 41 _infra_.
Footnote 47:
Miss Norgate, _John Lackland_, 233, takes a different view, holding
that the influence of Stephen Langton dates from an earlier period.
The original articles “are obviously not the composition of the barons
mustered under Robert Fitz-Walter,” who could never have risen to “the
lofty conception embodied in the Charter—the conception of a contract
between King and people which should secure equal rights to every
class and every individual in the nation.” The correctness of this
estimate is discussed _infra_.
-----
In addition to the various originals of the Charter issued under the
great seal, chapter 62 provides that authenticated copies should be made
and certified as correct by “Letters Testimonial,” under the seals of
the two archbishops with the legate and the bishops. This was done, but
the exact date of their issue is unknown.[48]
-----
Footnote 48:
No specimen of these Letters Testimonial is known to exist, but a copy
is preserved on folio 234 of the _Red Book of the Exchequer_. See
Appendix.
-----
The same Friday which thus saw the completion of negotiations saw also
the issue of the first batch of letters of instructions to the various
sheriffs, telling them that a firm peace had been concluded, by God’s
grace, between John and the barons and freemen of the kingdom, as they
might hear and see by the Charter which had been made, and which was to
be published throughout the district, and firmly observed. Each sheriff
was further commanded to cause all in his bailiwick to make oath
according to the form of the Charter to the twenty-five barons or their
attorneys, and further, to see to the appointment of twelve knights of
the county in full County Court, in order that they might declare upon
oath all evil customs requiring to be reformed, as well of sheriffs as
of their servants, foresters, and others.[49] This was held to apply
chiefly to the redress of forest grievances.
-----
Footnote 49:
See _Rot. Pat._, I. 180, and _Select Charters_, 306–7.
-----
Apparently, four days elapsed before similar letters, accompanied by
copies of the Charter, could be sent to every sheriff. During the same
few days, several writs (some of which have already been mentioned) were
dispatched to military commanders with orders to stop hostilities. A few
writs, dated mostly 25th June, show that some obnoxious sheriffs had
been removed to make way for better men. Hubert de Burgh, a moderate
though loyal adherent, and a man generally respected, was appointed
Justiciar in room of the hated Peter des Roches. On 27th June, another
writ directed the sheriffs and the elected knights to punish, by
forfeiture of lands and chattels, all those who refused to swear to the
twenty-five Executors within a fortnight. All these various instructions
may be regarded as forming part of the settlement of the 19th of June,
and were dispatched with the greatest rapidity possible.
Even after the settlement arrived at on Friday, some minor points of
dispute remained. The barons refused to be satisfied without substantial
security that the reforms and restorations agreed on would be carried
out by the King; they demanded that both the city of London and the
Tower of London should be left completely under their control as pledges
of John’s good faith, until 15th August, or longer, if the reforms had
not then been completed. John obtained a slight modification of these
demands; he surrendered the city of London to his opponents, as they
asked; but placed the Tower in the neutral custody of the Archbishop of
Canterbury. These conditions were embodied in a supplementary treaty,
which describes itself as _Conventio facta inter Regem Angliae et
barones ejusdem regni_.[50] If the barons distrusted John, he was
equally distrustful of them, demanding the security they had promised
for fulfilment of their part of the original compact. He now asked a
formal charter in his favour that they would observe the peace and their
oaths of homage, which they point-blank refused to grant. The King
appealed to the prelates without effect. The archbishops, with several
suffragans, however, put a formal protest on record of the barons’
promise and subsequent refusal to keep it.[51]
-----
Footnote 50:
_New Rymer_, I. 133. See Appendix. It is undated, but must be later
than the letters to sheriffs concerning election of twelve knights, to
which it alludes.
Footnote 51:
_Rot. Pat._, p. 181. As we have to depend for our knowledge of this
important protest on one copy, engrossed on the back of a membrane of
an official roll (No. 18 of John’s 17th year), it is possible to doubt
its genuineness; but it is unlikely to be purely a forgery.
-----
The two archbishops and their brother prelates entered a second protest
of a different nature. They seem to have become alarmed by the drastic
measures adopted or likely to be adopted, founded on the verdicts of the
twelve knights elected in each county to carry into effect the various
clauses of the Great Charter directed against abuses of the Forest laws.
Apparently, it was feared that reforms of a sweeping nature would
result, and practically abolish the royal forests altogether.
Accordingly, they placed their protest formally on record—acting
undoubtedly in the interests of the Crown, feeling that as mediators
they were bound in some measure to see fairplay. They objected to a
strained construction of the words of the Charter, holding that the
articles in question ought to be understood as limited; all customs
necessary for the preservation of the forests should remain in
force.[52]
-----
Footnote 52:
See _Rot. Pat._ and _New Rymer_, I. 134.
-----
The provisions referred to were, as is now well known, chapters 47, 48,
and 53 of Magna Carta itself, and not, as Roger of Wendover states, a
separate Forest Charter.[53] That writer was led into this unfortunate
error by confusing the charter granted by King John with its re-issue by
his son in 1217, when provisions for the reform of the forest law _were_
framed into a separate supplementary charter. From Roger’s time onwards,
the charters of Henry III. were reproduced in all texts and treatises,
in place of the real charter actually granted by John. Sir William
Blackstone was the first commentator to discover this grievous error,
and he clearly emphasized the grave differences between the terms
granted by John and those of his son, showing in particular that the
former king granted no separate Forest Charter at all.[54]
-----
Footnote 53:
See R. Wendover, III. 302-318.
Footnote 54:
_Great Charter_, p. xxi.
-----
Before the conferences at Runnymede came to an end, confidence in the
good intentions of the twenty-five Executors, drawn it must be
remembered entirely from the section of the baronage most extreme in
their views and most unfriendly to John, seems to have been completely
lost. If we may believe Matthew Paris,[55] a second body or committee of
thirty-eight barons was nominated, representing other and more moderate
sections of the baronage, to act as a check on the otherwise
all-powerful oligarchy of twenty-five despots. If this second committee
was ever really appointed, no details have been preserved as to the date
of its selection, or as to the exact powers entrusted to it.
-----
Footnote 55:
_Chron. Maj._, II. 605-6.
-----
If the rebel leaders expected to arrive at a permanent settlement of
their disputes when they came to meet the King on the morning of the
15th day of June, it must have been evident to all before the 23rd, that
John only made the bargain in order to gain time and strength to break
it. Three weeks, indeed, before John granted Magna Carta, he had begun
his preparations for its repudiation. In a letter of 29th May, addressed
to the Pope, there may still be read his own explanation of the causes
of quarrel, and how he urged, with the low cunning peculiar to him, that
the hostility of the rebels prevented the fulfilment of his vow of
crusade. In conclusion, he expressed his willingness to abide by the
Pope’s decision on all matters at issue.
John, then, at Runnymede was merely waiting for two events which would
put him in a position to throw off the mask—the favourable answer he
confidently expected from the Pope, and the arrival of foreign troops.
Meanwhile, delay was doubly in his favour; since the combination formed
against him was certain, in a short time, to break up. It was, in the
happy phrase of Dr. Stubbs,[56] a mere “coalition,” not an "organic
union"—a coalition, too, in momentary danger of dissolving into its
original factors. The barons were without sufficient sinews of war to
carry a protracted struggle to a successful issue. Very soon, both sides
to the treaty of peace were preparing for war. The northern barons,
anticipating the King in direct breach of the compact, began to fortify
their castles. John, in equally bad faith, wrote for foreign allies,
whilst he anxiously awaited the Pope’s answer to his appeal.
-----
Footnote 56:
Stubbs, _Const. Hist._, II. 3.
-----
Langton and the bishops still struggled to restore harmony. The 16th
July was fixed for a new conference. John did not attend; but it was
probably at this Council that in his absence a papal bull was read
conferring upon a commission of three—the Bishop of Winchester, the
Abbot of Reading, and the legate Pandulf—full powers to excommunicate
all “disturbers of the King and Kingdom.” No names were mentioned, but
these powers might clearly be used against Langton and his friends. The
execution of this sentence was delayed, in the groundless hope of a
compromise, till the middle of September, when two of the commissioners,
Pandulf and Peter of Winchester, demanded that the Archbishop should
publish it; and, on his refusal, they forthwith, in terms of their papal
authority, suspended him from his office. Stephen left for Rome, and his
absence at a critical juncture proved a national misfortune. The
insurgents lost in him, not only their bond of union, but also a
wholesome restraint. His absence must be reckoned among the causes of
the royalist reaction soon to take place. After his departure, a papal
bull arrived (in the end of September) dated 24th August. This is an
important document in which Innocent, in the plainest terms, annuls and
abrogates the Charter, after adopting all the facts and reproducing all
the arguments furnished by the King. Beginning with a full description
of John’s wickedness and repentance, his surrender of England and
Ireland, his acceptance of the Cross, his quarrel with the barons; it
goes on to describe Magna Carta as the result of a conspiracy, and
concludes, “We utterly reprobate and condemn any agreement of this kind,
forbidding, under ban of our anathema, the aforesaid king to presume to
observe it, and the barons and their accomplices to exact its
performance, declaring void and entirely abolishing both the Charter
itself and the obligations and safeguards made, either for its
enforcement or in accordance with it, so that they shall have no
validity at any time whatsoever.”[57]
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Footnote 57:
The original bull with the seal of Innocent still attached is
preserved in the British Museum (Cotton, Cleopatra E 1), and is
carefully printed by Bémont, _Chartes des Libertés Anglaises_, p. 41.
It may also be read _inter alia_ in Rymer and in Blackstone.
-----
A supplementary bull, of one day’s later date, reminded the barons that
the suzerainty of England belonged to Rome, and that therefore nothing
could be done in the kingdom without papal consent.[58] Thereafter, at a
Lateran Council, Innocent formally excommunicated the English barons who
had persecuted “John, King of England, crusader and vassal of the Church
of Rome, by endeavouring to take from him his kingdom, a fief of the
Holy See.”[59]
-----
Footnote 58:
The text is given by Rymer.
Footnote 59:
See Rymer, and Bémont, _Chartes_, xxv.
-----
Meanwhile, the points in dispute had been submitted to the rude
arbitrament of civil war, in which the first notable success fell to
King John in the capture, by assault, of Rochester Castle on 30th
November. The barons had already made overtures to Louis, the French
King’s son, to whom they promised as a reward for his help, yet not
perhaps with entire sincerity, the crown of England. Towards the end of
November, some seven thousand French troops arrived in London, where
they spent the winter—a winter consumed by John in marching from place
to place meeting, on the whole, with success, especially in the east of
England. John’s best ally was the Pope, who had no intention of allowing
a French Prince to usurp the throne of one who was now his humble
vassal. Gualo was dispatched from Rome to Philip, King of France,
forbidding his son’s invasion, and asking rather protection and
assistance for John as a papal vassal. Philip, anxious to meet the force
of the Pope’s arguments with some title to intervene, of more weight
than the invitation of a group of rebels, replied by an ingenious string
of fictions. He endeavoured to find defects in John’s title as King of
England, and to argue that therefore John was not _in titulo_ to grant
to the Pope the rights of an overlord. Among other arguments it was
urged that John had been convicted of treason while Richard was King,
and that this sentence involved forfeiture by the traitor of all rights
of succession to the Crown. Thus the Pope’s claim of intervention was
invalid, while Prince Louis justified his own interference by some
imagined right which he ingeniously argued had passed to him through the
mother of his wife.
John had not relied solely on papal protection. A great fleet, collected
at Dover to block Louis with his smaller vessels in Calais harbour, was
wrecked on 18th May, 1216. The channel thus cleared of English ships,
the French Prince, setting sail on the night of the 20th May, landed
next morning without opposition. John, reduced to dependence on
mercenaries, did not dare oppose his landing. Gualo, now in England, on
28th May excommunicated Louis by name, and laid London under interdict.
Such thunderbolts had now lost their blasting power by frequent
repetition, and produced no effect whatever. On 2nd June, Louis entered
London amid acclamations, and marched against John at Winchester, which
he reached on 14th June, after John had fled. Ten days later, the
ancient capital of Wessex with its castles surrendered. Next day, the
French Prince attacked Dover, whose brave defender, Hubert de Burgh,
after some months of stubborn resistance, obtained a truce, on 14th
October, in order that the garrison might communicate with the King.
Before Hubert’s messengers could reach him, John was dying. During these
months, when the verdict of war was going against him in the south, he
had been acting in the north strenuously, and not without success. The
issue still trembled in the balance. A royalist reaction had begun. The
insolence of the French troops caused desertions from the barons.
On 10th October John, after being feasted to excess by the loyal
burghers of Lynn, fell into an illness from which he never really
recovered. Nine days later, worn out by his wars, and by excitement and
chagrin, at this critical juncture when fortune might have taken any
sudden turn, he died at Newark Castle, in the early hours of the morning
of 19th October, 1216. His death saved the situation, rendering a
compromise possible. Almost immediately, there took place an entirely
new grouping of political forces inside and outside of England. A silent
compromise was effected, all parties returning gradually to their
natural allegiance to the son of John, on the understanding that the
Charter in its main features should be accepted as the basis of his
government. Prince Louis was soon discarded. Rome also fell into line;
the death of Innocent, on 16th June, 1216, had been equally opportune
with the death of John, four months later, removing an obstacle from the
path of peace. Gualo, in the name of Innocent’s successor, consented to
the re-issue of the Charter by the advisers of the young King Henry.