first door they found soldiers with drawn swords, in the second a band
of nobles, in the third a species of couch guarded by ferocious-looking
warriors, who opened their ranks and let them approach the Saracen
prince. They explained their mission, and gave him the King’s letters,
which were translated by an interpreter, while they studied the grave
and majestic but gentle expression of his countenance. After some
minutes’ reflection, he thus spoke: “A few moments ago I was reading a
book by a Greek sage; who was a Christian, by name Paul, whose words
and acts please me exceedingly. One thing alone in him displeases me,
namely, that, born under the Jewish law, he forsook the faith of his
fathers to adopt a new one. It is the same with your King of England,
who, renouncing the religion to which he was born, is bent and moulded
like wax. I know the Almighty is ignorant of nothing; and, had I been
born with no religion, I might have chosen the Christian. But tell me,
what is the King of England--what are the strength and riches of his
realm?”
The clerk then spoke: “Our King is born of illustrious ancestors, his
domains are rich in fertile pastures, forests, and mines; his people
are mighty and handsome, possessed of sciences, and ruling over three
tongues--Welsh, Latin, and French. The English understand all arts,
especially mechanics and navigation, and they have gained the title of
Island Kings.”
“Ah, ha!” said the Moor, smiling; “but how can the prince of so fair a
kingdom condescend, to offer to give up his freedom, pay tribute, and
put himself under subjection? He must be sick. What is his age?”
“Between forty and fifty--strong and healthy.”
“I see how it is! He is losing his youthful spirit!” Then, after a
silence, “Your King is nothing; he is only a kinglet growing enfeebled
and old. I care not for him; he is unworthy to be united to me. Away
with you! Your master’s infamy stinks in my nostrils!”
The envoys retired in confusion; but the Emir had been struck by the
appearance of the clerk, a small, deformed man, with a dark, Jewish
face, one arm longer than the other, misshapen fingers, wearing the
tonsure and clerical habit; and thinking there must be superior
intelligence to counterbalance so unprepossessing an aspect, he sent
for him in private, and asked him on oath respecting the morals and
character of his master. He was obliged to confess the whole truth; and
Mahomet asked, in surprise, “How can the English allow this cowardly
tyrant to misuse them? Are they effeminate and servile?”
“No, indeed,” was the answer, “but they are very patient, until driven
to extremity; then, like the wounded lion or elephant, they rise against
their oppressor.”
“I blame their weakness,” said the Emir: “they should put an end to the
wretch.”
So, obtaining nothing for their master by his plan of apostasy, the
envoys were dismissed, the clerk alone having received a present from
the Saracen prince, who had been pleased with his ability. While buoyed
up by these hopes, John had shown some spirit; he had fitted out a
fleet, which suddenly crossed the Channel and burnt the French ships at
Dieppe, and he was at the head of an army of 60,000 men in Kent. But he
did not trust his own forces, and, on hearing there was no aid to be
looked for from Spain, his courage failed, and he was ready, after all
his threats, to make any concession.
Hubert, Abbot of Beaulieu, the monastery founded by John in expiation of
Arthur’s murder, was secretly sent with offers of submission, and two
Knights of the Temple arrived at the camp with a message that Cardinal
Pandulfo, the Pope’s legate, would fain see the King in private.
John consented, and Pandulfo, coming to him at Dover, terrified him
dreadfully with the description of the French armament, and then
skilfully talked of the Pope’s clemency and forgiveness. This took the
more effect that Ascension Day was approaching, and the prediction of
Peter of Wakefield way preying on his mind.
On the 13th of May, John consented, in the presence of four of his
nobles--the Earls of Salisbury, Boulogne, Warenne, and Ferrars--to a
treaty such as had been previously offered to him, receiving Langton,
recalling the exiled clergy, and making restitution for the injuries
they had suffered. This deed was sealed by the King and the four earls,
and it seemed as if all were arranged.
Next day, however, the legate was closeted with the King; and on the
following, the eve of the Ascension, 1213, the English were amazed by
the proceedings of the King.
He repaired to the church of the Temple early in the morning, and there
an instrument was read aloud: “Ye know,” it said, in the name of John to
his subjects, “that we have deeply offended our Holy Mother the Church,
and that it will be hard to draw on us the mercy of Heaven. Therefore we
would humble ourselves, and without constraint, of our own free will, by
the consent of our barons and high justiciaries, we give and confer on
God, on the holy Apostles St. Peter and St. Paul, on our Mother the
Church, and on Pope Innocent III. and his Catholic successors, the
whole kingdom of England and of Ireland, with all their rights and
dependencies, for the remission of our sins; henceforth we hold them
as a fief, and in, token thereof we swear allegiance and pay homage in
presence of Pandulfo, Legate of the Holy See.”
John seems to have found no chancellor who would seal the charter of his
shame, but to have had to set the great seal to it himself; thus giving
to the Pope, “for the remission of his sins,” the crown which the
Saracen had disdained! The cardinal legate seated himself on the vacated
throne, John knelt at his feet, laid down the crown, and spoke the words
of allegiance as a vassal, offering money as the earnest of the tribute.
Pandulfo indignantly trampled on the coin, in token that the Church
scorned earthly riches; but earthly honors Rome did not scorn, and for
five days the crown remained in the cardinal’s keeping. So John was
discrowned on Ascension Day, and Peter of Wakefield’s prediction was
verified; but it did not save the poor prophet. The vindictive wretch,
who pretended to have yielded his throne for the pardon of his sins,
caused him and his son to be drawn at the tails of horses, and hanged on
gibbets.
The excommunication was removed, and the hateful John was declared a
favored son of the Church, while Pandulfo went to put a stop to the
French expedition. This was not quite so easy; Philippe Auguste had been
at great expense, and he could not endure to let his enemy escape him;
he was the Pope’s friend only when it suited him, and he swore that,
Pope or no Pope, he would invade England. Ferrand, Count of Flanders,
remonstrated and Philippe drove him away in a fury, “By all the saints,
France shall belong to Flanders, or Flanders to France!”
So he burst into Flanders, and besieged Ghent. Ferrand sent to John
for aid, and the fleet under the command of the earls of Holland and
Salisbury utterly destroyed the French fleet at Bruges, on which
Philippe depended for provisions, so that he was forced to retreat to
his own country. The following year, as he was still in opposition to
the Pope, a league was formed for the invasion of France, between John,
his nephew Otho, Emperor of Germany, and many other friends of Innocent,
but it only resulted in a shameful defeat at Bouvines, where Philippe
signalized his courage and generalship, and John and Otho fled in
disgrace. In this battle the Bishop of Beauvais again fought, but
thought to obviate the danger of being disavowed by his spiritual father
by using no weapon save a club.
In the meantime, Stephen Langton arrived in England, took possession of
his see, and at Winchester received a reluctant kiss from the King, who
bitterly hated the cause of his shame. The Cardinal Archbishop publicly
absolved the King, and relieved the country from the interdict under
which it had groaned for five years.
It is a melancholy history of the encroachments of Rome, and of the
atrocious wickedness of the English King; and perhaps the worst feature
in the case was that his crimes went unreproved, and that it was only
his resistance to the Pope that was punished. The love of temporal
dominion was ruining the Church of Rome.
CAMEO XXVII. MAGNA CHARTA. (1214-1217.)
_Kings of England_.
1199. John.
1216. Henry III.
_King of Scotland_.
1214. Alexander II.
_King of France_.
1180. Philippe II.
_Emperor of Germany._
1209. Friedrich II.
_Popes_.
1198. Innocent III.
1216. Honorius III.
The first table of English laws were those of Ina, King of Wessex.
Alfred the Great published a fuller code, commencing with the Ten
Commandments, as the foundation of all law. Ethelstane and St. Dunstan,
in the name of Edgar the Peaceable, added many other enactments, by
which the lives, liberties, and property of Englishmen were secured as
soundly as the wisdom of the times could devise.
These were the laws of Alfred and Edward the Confessor, which William
the Conqueror bound himself to observe at his coronation, but which
he entirely set at nought, bringing in with him the feudal system,
according to his own harsh interpretation. The Norman barons who owned
estates in England found themselves more entirely subject to the King,
who brought them in by right of conquest, than they had been by ancient
custom to their duke in Normandy; and Saxons and Normans alike were new
to the strict Forest Laws introduced by William.
Every king of doubtful right tried to win the favor of the Saxons, a
sturdy and formidable race, though still in subjection, by engaging to
give them the laws of their own dynasty. With this promise William Rufus
was crowned, and likewise Henry I., who even distributed copies of
the charter to be kept in the archives of all the chief abbeys, but
afterward caused them, it seems, to be privately destroyed. Stephen made
the same futile promise, failing perhaps, more from inability than from
design; and after his death the nation was so glad of repose on any
terms, that there were no special stipulations made on the accession of
Henry II. He and his Grand Justiciary, Ranulf de Glanville, governed
according to law, but it was partly the law of Normandy, partly of
their own device; the Norman _parlement_ of barons, and the Saxon
Wittenagemot, were alike ignored. The King obtained sufficient supplies
from his own immense estates, and from the fines which he had the power
to demand at certain times as feudal superior, and did in fact obtain at
will, and exact even for doing men justice in courts of law.
As long as there was an orderly sovereign, such as Henry II. the
unlimited power of the Crown was tolerable; under a reckless, impetuous
prince like Coeur de Lion, it was a grievance; and, in a tyrant such
as John Lackland, it became past endurance. His fines were outrageous
extortion, and here and there the entries in the accounts show the base,
wanton bribery in his court. The Bishop of Winchester paid a tun of good
wine for not reminding the King to give a girdle to the Countess of
Albemarle; Robert de Vaux gave five of his best palfreys that the King
might hold his tongue about Henry Pinel’s wife; while a third paid four
marks for permission to eat. Moreover, no man’s family was safe, even
of the highest rank: the death of the Lady of Bramber was fresh in
the memory of all; and Matilda the Fair, the daughter of Robert Lord
Fitzwalter, was seized, carried from her home, and, because she refused
to listen to the suit of the tyrant, her father was banished, his
castles destroyed, and the maiden, after enduring with constancy two
years’ imprisonment in a turret of the White Tower of London, was
poisoned with an egg.
The person of whom John stood most in awe, was his Grand Justiciary,
Geoffrey Fitzpiers, who, though of low birth, had married the Countess
of Essex, and was highly respected for his character and situation.
One day the King, with his usual imprudence, pointed him out to the
Provost of St. Omer. “Seest thou him yonder? Never did one man watch
another as he watches me, lest I should get some of his goods; but as
much pains as he takes to watch me, so much do I take to gain them.”
Fitzpiers was not out of earshot, and his comment was, “Sir Provost,
well did I hear what the King said to thee; and since he is so set on my
wealth, he will surely get it; but thou knowest; and he knows, that I
can raise such a storm as he will feel many a day after my death.”
John’s fears did not prevent him from imposing a fine of 12,000 marks
on Geoffrey, which ended his patience. He entered into an understanding
with the barons, who had just been summoned by John to attend him on his
expedition against France. They joined him, but sailed no further than
Jersey, where they declared that the forty days they were bound to serve
by feudal tenure were passed; and all, turning back, met Archbishop
Langton and the Grand Justiciary at St. Albans, where Fitzpiers
commenced his retaliation, by proclaiming, in the King’s name, the old
Saxon charter of Alfred and Edward, renewed by Henry I., as well as the
repeal of the Forest Laws.
Back came John in rage and fury, and let loose his free-companions on
the estates of the confederates. At Northampton, Stephen Langton met
him, and forbade his violence. “These measures are contrary to your
oaths,” he said. “Your vassals have a right to be judged only by their
peers.”
John reviled him. “Rule you the Church,” he said; “leave me to govern
the State.”
Langton left him, but met him again at Nottingham, assuring him
the barons would come to have their cause tried, and threatening
excommunication to every one who should execute the King’s barbarous
orders. This brought John to terms, and all parties met in London, where
the Archbishop had a previous conference with the barons, to which he
brought a copy of the Charter, with great difficulty procured from one
of the monasteries. He read it to them, commented on its provisions, and
they ended by mutually engaging to conquer, or die in defence of their
rights as Englishmen. The Norman barons were glad enough so to term
themselves, and to take shelter under English laws.
But it was the Pope’s kingdom now, not that of craven John; and Innocent
sent a legate, Nicholas, Cardinal Bishop of Tusculum, to settle the
affair. John debased himself by repeating the homage and oath of fealty,
and by giving a fresh charter of submission, sealed not with wax, but
with gold, as if to make it more binding.
The injuries done to the barons by the free-companions were beyond the
King’s power of restitution, but the Pope adjudged him to pay 15,000
marks for the present, after which John set off on his disastrous
journey to Bouvines. In his absence, Fitzpiers died, and this quite
consoled him for his defeat. “It’s well,” he cried; “he is gone to shake
hands in hell with our primate Hubert! Now am I first truly a King!”
But Geoffrey’s storm was near its bursting, precipitated perhaps by
the loss of this last curb on the lawless King. Langton was seriously
displeased with the legate, who had taken all the Church patronage
into his hands, and was giving it away to Italians, foreigners,
children--nay, even promising it for the unborn. The Archbishop sent his
brother Simon to appeal to the Pope, but could get no redress. Innocent
was displeased with him for opposing the _protégé_ of the papal see; and
certainly he had no right to complain of the Roman patronage while he
held the see of Canterbury.
However, he was too much of an Englishman to see his Church or his
country trampled down; and at Christmas, 1214, there was another
assembly of the barons at Bury St. Edmund’s. The plans were arranged,
and an oath taken by each singly, kneeling before the high altar in the
church of the royal Saxon saint, that if the laws were rejected, they
would withdraw their oaths of allegiance.
They set out for Worcester to present their charter to the King, but he
got intelligence of their design, hastened to London, and put himself
under the protection of the Knights of the Temple. They followed him,
and on Twelfth Day laid the charter before him. He took a high tone, and
only insisted on their declaring by hand and seal that they would never
so act again; but finding this was not the way to treat such men,
promised, on the security of the Archbishop, the Bishop of Ely, and Earl
of Pembroke, to grant what they asked at Easter.
He used the space thus gained in taking the Cross, that he might enjoy
the immunities of a Crusader, fortifying his castles, and sending for
free-companions, while both parties wrote explanations to the Pope.
John obtained encouragement, Langton was severely reprehended; Innocent
declared all the confederacies of the barons null and void, and forbade
them for the future, under pain of excommunication.
In Easter-week the barons met at Stamford, with 2,000 knights and
their squires. Their charter was carried to the King at Oxford by the
Archbishop and the Earls of Pembroke and Warenne. They were received
with fury. “Why do not they ask my crown at once?” cried John. “Do they
think I will grant them liberties that would make me a slave?”
Then, with more moderation, he proposed to appeal to the Pope, and to
redress all grievances that had arisen in his own time or in that of his
brothers; but they still adhered to their demands, and when Pandulfo
called on the Primate to excommunicate the insurgent barons, Langton
made answer that he was better instructed in the Pope’s views, and
unless the King dismissed his foreign soldiers, he should be obliged to
excommunicate them.
John offered to refer the matter to nine umpires--namely, Innocent, four
chosen by himself, and four by the barons; but this also was rejected:
the barons would have no terms short of their Great Charter; and
electing the most injured of all, Robert Fitzwalter, as their general,
they marched against Northampton. It was garrisoned by the King’s
foreign mercenaries, who refused all attempts to corrupt them; and as
the want of machines made it impossible to take it, the barons proceeded
to Bedford after fifteen days, their spirits somewhat damped.
However, Bedford opened its gates, and tidings reached them that London
was favorably disposed. They therefore proceeded thither, and arrived
on the first Sunday in June, early in the morning, when the gates were
opened, and the burghers all at mass in the churches. They entered in
excellent order, took possession of the Tower, and thence sent forth
proclamations, terming themselves the Army of God and of Holy Church,
and calling on every one to join them, under pain of being used as
traitors and rebels.
The whole country responded; scarcely a man, Saxon or Norman, who was
not with them in spirit; and John, then at Odiham, in Hampshire, found
himself deserted by all his knights save seven. He was at first in
deadly terror; but soon rallying his spirits, he resolved to cajole the
barons, pronounced that what his lieges had done was well done, and
despatched the Earl of Pembroke to assure them of his readiness and
satisfaction in granting their desires: all that was needed was a day
and place for the meeting.
“The day, the 15th of June; the place, Runnymede,” returned his loving
subjects.
The broad, smooth, green meadow of Runnymede, on the bank of the Thames,
spreading out fair and fertile beneath the heights of Windsor, became a
watchword of English rights.
The stalwart barony of England, Norman in name and rank, but with Saxon
blood infused in their veins, and strength consisting of stout Saxon
yeomen and peasantry, there arrayed themselves, with Robert Fitzwalter
for their spokesman and leader; and thither, on the other hand, came,
from Windsor Castle, King John, accompanied by Cardinal Pandulfo,
Amaury, Grand Master of the Temple, Langton, and seven other bishops,
and Pembroke with twelve nobles, but scarcely one of these, except the
two first, whose heart was not with the barons on the other side.
The charter was spread forth--the Great Charter, which, in the first
place, asserted the liberty of the Church of England, and then of its
people. It forbade the King to exact arbitrary sums from his subjects
without the consent of a council of the great crown vassals; it required
that no man should be made an officer of justice without knowledge of
the law; and forced from the King the promise not to sell, refuse, or
defer right or justice to any man; neither to seize the person or goods
of any free man without the lawful judgment of his peers, or by the law
of the land. The same privileges were extended to the cities, but the
serfs or villeins had no part in them; the nobility of England had not
yet learnt to consider them worthy of regard. Much, however, was done by
the recognition of the law, and Magna Charta has been the foundation of
all subsequent legislation in England. A lesser charter was added on the
oppressive Forest Laws, which it in some degree mitigated by lessening
the number of royal forests, and appointing nobles in each county to
keep in check the violence of the King’s keepers.
The original Charter itself, creased with age and injured by fire, but
with John’s great seal still appended to it, remains extant in the
British Museum, a copy beside it, bearing in beautiful old writing in
Latin the clear, sharp, lawyer-like terms with which the barons, who,
rough and turbulent as they were, must have had among them men of great
legal ability, sought to bind their tyrant to respect their lives and
lands.
Four-and-twenty of their number, and with them the Mayor of London, were
appointed to enforce the observance of the Charter, which was sent out
to the sheriffs in all the counties to be proclaimed by them with sounds
of trumpet at the market-crosses and in the churches; while twelve men,
learned in the law, were to be chosen to inquire into and re dress all
grievances since the accession. Moreover, every Poitevin, Brabançon,
and other free-companion in the King’s service was to be immediately
dismissed, and the barons were to hold the city of London, and Langton
the Tower, for the next two months.
The Charter was thus sealed, June 15th, 1215; and John, as long as he
was in the presence of the barons, put a restraint on himself, and acted
as if it was granted, as it professed to be, of his own free will and
pleasure, speaking courteously to all who approached, and treating the
matter in hand with his usual gay levity, signing the Charter with so
little heed to its contents that the wiser heads must have gathered that
he had no intention of being bound by them. However, they had achieved
a great victory, and, after parting with him, amused themselves by
arranging for a tournament to be held at Stamford; while John, when
within the walls of Windsor, gave vent to his rage, threw himself on the
ground, rolled about gnawing sticks and straws, uttering maledictions
upon the barons, and denouncing vengeance against the nation that had
made him an underling to twenty-five kings.
On recovering, he ordered his horse, and secretly withdrew to the Isle
of Wight, where he saw no one but the piratical fishermen of the place,
whose manners he imitated, and even, it is said, joined in some of their
lawless expeditions. At the same time he despatched letters to the
Brabançons and Gascons, inviting them to the conquest of England, and
promising them the castles and manors of his present subjects.
The barons gained some tidings of his proceedings, and were on their
guard. Robert Fitzwalter wrote letters appointing the tournament to be
held, not at Stamford, but on Hounslow Heath, summoning the knights
to it with their arms and horses, and promising, as the prize of the
tournay, a she-bear, which the young lady of a castle had sent them.
To what brave knight the she-bear was awarded, history says not; for in
the midst came the tidings that the Pope had been greatly enraged, had
annulled the Charter as prejudicial to the power of the Church, and had
commanded the Archbishop of Canterbury to dissolve all leagues among the
vassals under pain of excommunication. The barons, having the Archbishop
on their side, thought little of the thunders of the Pope; but John was
emboldened to come forth, offer a conference at Oxford, which he did not
attend, and then go to Dover to receive the free-companions, who flocked
from all quarters.