John surnamed Sansterre, or Lackland.
In consequence of the death of Richard with out legitimate issue, his nephew Arthur, the son of Geoffrey, was the next heir to the throne, according to the present notions of linear succession. But in those days some thing of the spirit of an elective monarchy prevailed in England, while the kings themselves assumed the right of bequeathing the crown by will, as if it had been theirs to give or to withhold. Thus Richard, who had gradually become reconciled to his brother John, on his death-bed declared him his successor, and required all present to do him homage, at the same time bequeathing him his treasures. His subjects however seem to have thought that they had the right of choosing their own master, and while some were ready to receive John for a monarch, others preferred the claims of Arthur, nor was until after much discussion in a great council held at Northampton, that the party of John prevailed. The exclusion of Arthur was chiefly justified on the elective rights of the people, under which name of the people was by no means signified the bulk of the nation, but the prelates and nobles, who were strong enough to maintain their privileges.
On the continent the affairs of John were far from being equally prosperous. Philip thought this a favourable opportunity for annexing the English provinces in his neighbourhood to France, and a war of little interest was terminated by John’s giving his niece, Blanche, in marriage to Louis the son of Philip, transferring to him many valuable fiefs by way of wedding portion, and paying twenty thousand marks as the relief for his succession to the duchy of Bretagne.
No sooner were affairs in France thus terminated, and not much to his honour and advantage, than John, by his wilfulness plunged himself into fresh difficulties. It was twelve years since he had been married to Hadwisa, or Johanna, the heiress to the earldom of Gloucester, an union originally contracted from motives of interest. Her estates had been a matter of much importance to him, while only Earl of Montagne, but now that he had gained the crown, her property was of far less consideration, and he did not scruple to sue for a divorce, which was readily granted by the Archbishop of Bordeaux. The usual plea of consanguinity afforded a decent pretext for this concession, and when we consider the way in which the eighth Henry used to cut the Gordian knot of marriage because he wanted the same means of untying it, we shall hardly think the female world lost any thing by this facility of divorce. It is surely much better to part with a husband than with the head.
Having thus freed himself of his old obligation, John sent ambassadors to Lisbon, to demand in marriage the princess of Portugal; but before an answer could be returned, he saw and immediately fell in love with Isabella, daughter to Aymer, Count of Angouleme, whose hand had been previously promised to Hugh, Count de La Marche. Both father and daughter were too much dazzled by the splendour of a throne, to think of any prior engagement; the marriage took place in defiance of all complaints or remonstrances from the injured parties, and John carrying his bride to England, the Primate crowned the new king and queen at Westminster.
The Count de La Marche too feeble to redress his own wrongs appealed to Philip, as their common lord, and he, only too glad of this opportunity to exalt himself at the expense of one who was both his rival and his vassal, espoused the cause of the injured party without hesitation. The discontented barons hastened to join him, and for a time their united forces met with an uninterrupted current of success, one fortress surrendering to them after another. To the youthful Arthur was allotted the glory of making prisoner the queen mother, Eleanor, who was lodged in the castle of Mirabeau, in Poictou, with a feeble garrison, while the weakness of the defences seemed to hold out every prospect of its being soon and easily taken. Roused from his usual apathy by the danger of his mother, John hurried to the rescue, and obtained a complete victory over the enemy, who before had broken down the city-gates and held the queen besieged in a tower, whither she had fled for safety, refusing to capitulate. To put the cope-stone on his good fortune, John found his nephew Arthur among the prisoners, and he immediately placed this important prize in the strong castle of Falaise, for more security. Here he endeavoured to persuade the young prince to resign his pretensions to the crown of England ; Arthur refused the proposal with scorn, and was then removed to a dungeon of the new tower in the castle of Rouen, and in a short time was no more heard of. His enemies did not hesitate to tax John with having murdered him, mid such a crime was so consonant to the unscrupulous character of’ the king, and of the age in which he lived, that there is no reason for doubting the justice of the charge. At the time it was so universally believed that the Bretons took up arms to be revenged upon the murderer, and the Bishop of Rennes accused him of it before his suzerain lord Philip, who immediately summoned him to answer the charge in presence of his peers. John refused, and the French court adjudged him to have forfeited all the lands he held by homage, as one guilty of felony and treason. To give effect to this sentence, Philip and the Bretons invaded his territories at the same time from different quarters, and after taking several minor fortresses, proceeded to the attack of Château Gaillard, a strong castle upon a rock that overhung the Seine. To cut off all supplies from the garrison, they threw a bridge of boats across the river, while John despatched the Earl of Pembroke to the relief of the besieged. The latter determined to make a night-attack by land and water at the same time, and himself arriving at the appointed hour, made so furious an assault, that the French were thrown into great confusion; but he was unsupported by his flotilla, which had to contend against both wind and current, and in consequence did not come up ‘till the moment of his defeat. John made no further effort for the defence of his continental territories. Retiring to Rouen he abandoned himself to pleasure, affecting to despise the enemy he was afraid to cope with, and when their near approach, after a long career of victory, compelled him to a resolution of some kind he hastily fled to England. This apparently pusillanimous conduct might however have been owing to the treachery of his barons; that they were far from being sincere in his cause is abundantly evident; when upon his return to England John had raised large sums of money and a powerful army for the prosecution of the war, they informed him through Archbishop Hubert, that they had one and all determined not to embark—a wise resolution if it were embraced from wise motives.
The French king, having thus so little to oppose him, quickly made himself master of Château Gaillard, Falaise, Rouen, and other strong places, nor paused in the career of victory ‘till all Normandy, Anjou, Maine, and Touraine, had either been subdued by his arms, or yielded up to him by treachery. But it was now that Guy de Thouars, alarmed at the preponderance Philip had obtained by these additions to the French crown, abandoned his cause, and confederated with John, who had by some means either persuaded or controlled his refractory barons and disembarked with a large army on the shores of Rochelle. At first the English king exhibited unusual energy, and met with corresponding success; he took the strong castle Montauban, in a few days, and burnt the city of Angers; but he soon relapsed into his wonted apathy, and entered into negotiations with Philip, when by the interference of the papal legate, an armistice was agreed upon for two years.
If John were really fond of ease and quiet, there was some thing either in his own nature or in the caprices of fortune, that was for ever preventing him from the attainment of them. It was now his ill-luck to fall into a serious dispute with the Pope, who, armed with the thunders of the Vatican, was a much more, dangerous enemy than Philip. But to understand this con test thoroughly, it is necessary that the reader should be re minded of certain ecclesiastical regulations.
Among the immunities of the Church, which the English kings on their coronation always swore to maintain, was a right claimed by the chapters of electing their own prelates. But the bishoprics afforded the monarchs an easy mode of rewarding their friends, and were far too important from the baronies annexed to them to be confided to their enemies,. if such a thing could be avoided. Hence, therefore they had been in the habit of retaining in their own hands the real nomination, while they left to the chapters the show of a free election. The contrivance by which this was effected, was simple and obvious. The chapters were bound to have the royal licence, before they could proceed to their election, and this gave the king an opportunity of recommendation; they were bound, when their choice had been made, to submit it to the royal approval, and this gave the king a right of veto. Yet thus far the custom of England did not differ from that of other countries; but as several of the cathedral churches had originally been vested in monasteries, and were still served by monks, the latter laid claim to all the rights in other cases exercised by the chapters. Little mischief had arisen from these discordant elements except in regard to the see of Canterbury, which conferred too much importance on the elected primate, not to be an object of contention with all parties, king, monks, and prelates. The latter insisted on a concurrent, if not exclusive, right of election; the monks of Christchurch maintained with no less zeal their side of the question ; and the dispute, renewed upon the death of each succeeding archbishop, had never been brought to a final settlement. The monks, though they might be defeated, and their claims over-ruled, vet always refused to acknowledge the justice of such decisions, and reserved to themselves the right of contesting the point with the next opportunity. That opportunity had now come by the death of Hubert, and they were not slow to use it. Assembling secretly in the night-time, they elected their sub-prior Reginald to the vacant see, without the necessary preliminary of a royal licence. An election thus defective in one essential preliminary, it was obvious could not be maintained except by the authority of the Roman pontiff, and to him accordingly they despatched the sub-prior after having exacted from him an oath that he would not divulge the secret till he had sounded the pope, and made sure of his approbation. The vanity of Reginald defeated their prudence ; the moment he reached the continent, he assumed the title of archbishop elect, in consequence of which the monks, setting aside their own choice, requested and obtained the royal license, but with a recommendation to elect John de Gray, Bishop of Norwich They complied amid sent twelve of their body to support his cause at Rome.
There were now three parties to the dispute, and Pope Innocent first decided between the bishops and the monks, pronouncing judgement in favour of the latter, whose privilege had been built on the prescription of ages. He next considered the claims of the two rivals for the primacy, and annulled both their elections; that of Reginald was adjudged contrary to the canonical form, while the Bishop of Norwich was set aside because lie had been chosen before the prior election had been declared null and invalid. It would seem that such a decision was agreeable to the juridical notions of the age, for it had been foreseen by John, who had in consequence given permission to his delegates to make a new choice, but bound them by oath to re-elect the Bishop of Norwich. To this the pope objected, and perhaps from the grounds that he avowed,—namely that Gray, as one of the royal justiciairies had little time to attend to the spiritual government of his see ; or it might be that his preference for Stephen de Langton, whom lie now selected for the primacy, was the cause of his rejecting the other pretenders. Whether this exercise of power were founded in right or not, the choice would appear to have been altogether unobjectionable. Langton was by birth an Englishman, and he had taught with such success in the schools at Paris, that lie had been made chancellor of the university, and had obtained church preferment in his own country. It should be mentioned too in proof of the Pope’s sincerity, that lie rejected with scorn a bribe of three thousand marks, which were offered to buy a favourable decision for the king’s candidate.
To obviate all objections to Langton, as far as possible, Innocent despatched ministers to England, requesting the royal permission for the monks proceeding to a fresh election, and when the choice had been made in conformity with his wishes, he earnestly sought to obtain the king’s sanction to it. But his letters were stopt at Dover, and when after waiting for a time Innocent found that lie received no answer, he himself consecrated the Cardinal at Viterbo. A measure so decisive might perhaps have compelled submission from John, had not his anger been kept alive by the Bishop of Norwich, who was unwilling to relinquish so valuable a prize, and that already within his grasp. The monks were the first to feel the effects of the king’s resentment, upon the double ground of their having been the original cause of the dispute by their illegal election of Reginald, and of their having a second time defeated the king’s wishes, by choosing Stephen de Langton. A body of armed men was sent to expel them from their convent, and their lands were confiscated to the crown, while they themselves were compelled to seek refuge on the continent. It was in vain that the Pope endeavoured to soften John’s resentment, declaring that the past should not be drawn into a precedent injurious to the regal rights : the wisdom or the obstinacy of the king was proof against all persuasions. The Pope however, was still from motives of policy, unwilling to proceed to the last extremes, and ordered the bishops of Ely, London, and Worcester, to try what their influence could effect with the king, backed with the menace of putting the whole kingdom under interdict, if he persisted in his refusal. John still remained inflexible, where upon the prelates pronounced the fatal sentence, and, having committed this act of treason against their monarch, they fled secretly from the island to avoid his resentment.
And here it may be well to remark—as indeed it already has been by the best of Roman Catholic historians—--that the interdict was an exercise of clerical power unknown in the early ages of Christianity. Some faint traces of it may be found about the year 560, but it was not ‘till the eleventh century that its nature and extent were really understood, and its use became frequent, as a means of controlling the will of monarchs, by setting in array against them the religious feelings of their people. On the death of Charlemagne, the nobles had been left without any master-hand of sufficient strength to control them, and all the nations of Europe groaned under the multitude of these petty tyrants, each of whom was a scourge to his immediate circle. Fortunately for the people at large, their spirit of rapacity did not spare the altar, amid the clergy in self-defence taking up their proper weapons, opposed art to violence. Many were the expedients which their superior knowledge supplied them with, for controlling the brute-force of their antagonists, and at length in a synod held at Limoges, the abbot Odolric, suggested the interdict; “until the nobles,” said he, “ cease from their ravages, do you forbid the celebration of mass, the solemnities of marriage and the burial of the dead. Let the churches be stript of their ornaments, and the faithful observe the abstinence of Lent.” The experiment was tried, and proved so successful that ever afterwards it was considered the most powerful weapon in the ecclesiastical armoury, even kings and emperors giving way before its thunders.
It may be supposed that the interdict lost none of its usual efficacy, when employed against a monarch so universally unpopular as John. The people were struck with awe, when they found that the churches were closed, the funeral bells bad ceased to toll, and the dead were committed in silence to unconsecrated ground. John alone maintained the show of indifference amidst the general consternation, while he gratified his revenge by throwing into prison the relations of the three bishops, confiscated their property, and took possession of all the ecclesiastical revenues, telling the outcasts to seek pity and compensation from the Pope. But the priests were for the most part too prudent to leave England, and tried to subsist there on the charity of their friends.
The interdict lasted some years, during which the success of his arms threw a temporary lustre on the royal cause. Shortly after his coronation the Scottish king, William, had done homage to him at Lincoln, swearing fealty to him for life,—saving his own right,—and when he had risen from his knees, demanded that right in the shape of three counties of Northumberland, Cumberland, and Westmoreland. John eluded the grant at the time by fair promises of returning an answer when his leisure permitted it, upon which William did not hesitate to subscribe a charter acknowledging the feudal superiority of the English crown. They parted, however, it may be supposed with no very kindly feelings at heart, whatever face they might both deem it prudent to set upon the matter, and after nine years of doubtful tranquillity, John’s wrath was again fully kindled against his royal vassal. At the head of a numerous army he encamped near Norham, and William finding himself unable to cope with so powerful an enemy, submitted to a fine of fifteen thousand marks, gave several noblemen as hostages for their payment, and surrendered two of his daughters to the custody of his liege-lord.
Having been thus successful in Scotland, John had leisure to turn his attention to Ireland, where he had ample grounds of complaint not only in the conduct of the natives, but in the lawless violence of his English chieftains, who did not hesitate to use the feudal privilege of waging war upon each other. Landing at Dublin, in twelve weeks he had reduced his refractory barons to obedience and established the English law among the settlers, when leaving the government of the English county to the Bishop of Norwich he returned to his own land in safety.
He was no less successful in Wales in the following year. The Welsh had made incursions on the nearest counties, as they never failed to do with every opportunity that offered itself, but they were driven back again by the monarch, who at the foot of Snowden dictated to Llewellyn the terms of a fresh peace. These were sufficiently severe, and rendered yet more so by the exaction of twenty-eight hostages, all of whom died upon the gallows next year in consequence of their countrymen breaking in again upon the English borders according to their usual custom.
Had things gone wrong with the king, his went of success no doubt would have been attributed by the superstition of the age to his being under the interdict; in reason then his continued triumph should have been attributed; but it is plain that this was far from being the case, and that the discontent of the people thus deprived of their usual religious ceremonies made John anxious to come to a reconciliation with the Pope if it could be effected on any terms consistent with the national honour and the safety of his crown. Many negotiations were entered into and again broken off—the clergy of the day said, by the king’s fault—one great point of difficulty being the money which he had wrested from the ecclesiastics, and had no fancy for returning. At the end of a year thus passed in treaties that came to nothing, the pope had recourse to another expedient and fulminated against him a bull of excommunication, but he had the ports so closely watched, that the sentence could not be proclaimed in England and ‘till it was so it remained of no effect. As a farther means of protection, he sought the alliance of the Emir Al Moumenim, who by his conquests in Spain seemed to be in a fair way of driving Christianity out of the South of Europe altogether. This plan, however, which might have changed the whole face of the European world was defeated by the extreme caution of the Emir; according to the received tale he adjured Robert of London, one of the envoys, to tell him on the faith of a Christian, “what kind of man his master was.” The ecclesiastic replied that “he was a tyrant, who would soon be deposed by his subjects.” We might admire Robert’s love of truth, had he not on his return accepted from the king the custody of the abbey of St. Alban’s during the interdict, as a reward for fidelity to the master whom he had been betraying. Worse than Judas, lie did not hang himself after receiving the price of treachery.
Four years had now elapsed without any abatement in the king’s resolution, and the clergy who no doubt feared if the people were much longer deprived of their religious rites they might learn to dispense with them altogether, became more and more importunate with Innocent to proceed to the last extremity. This for a long time he was unwilling to do, and as he was both a wise and determined prince, who had never shown himself indisposed to use his authority, when it could be done with safety to the Church, we may reasonably conclude that John was not so generally odious to his people as it has pleased historians to represent him. At length however the Pope yielded to the importunity that beset him, absolved John’s vassals from their oaths of fealty, and urged all Christian princes to unite in dethroning the enemy to the papal see. Philip, who would have shrunk from the contest had the lionhearted Richard been upon the throne, immediately prepared to invade England. John on his side raised a large army to meet the enemy, and was now lying at Dover when he was visited by the Cardinal legate, Pandulph, who tried to work upon his fears by painting the immense resources of the French king, and the treachery of his own barons. Superstition, too, it is said, mingled in the game. Peter the Hermit had predicted that by time feast of the Ascension Day he would have ceased to reign, and it now wanted only three days to that time. The result was, John agreed, though with much reluctance, that Stephen Langton should be admitted to the archbishopric of Canterbury, that the clergy should be restored to their offices, and have full compensation for the moneys extorted from them, that all outlawries should be reversed, and that a general indemnity should be given for all offences connected with the late dispute. The faithful observance of this treaty was guaranteed by four of the most potent barons, and it was one that placed John completely in the situation of a vassal as regarded the pope, for he was now compelled to take the same oath of fealty that feudal lords were accustomed to exact from those who held lands under them ;—to so low a state had the vices of John and the rebellious spirit of his nobles reduced the country, the people as usual being the greatest sufferers. That this is no exaggerated statement will appear from the very terms of the oath as given by the best and most faithful of modern historians, the learned Dr. Lingard.—” He (John) swore that he would be faithful to God, to the blessed Peter, to the Roman Church, to Pope Innocent, and to Innocent’s rightful successors! that he would not by word, deed, or assent, abet their enemies to the loss of life, or limb, or liberty; that he would keep their counsel, and never reveal it to their injury; and that he would aid them to the best of his power to preserve and defend against all men the patrimony of Saint Peter, and especially the two kingdoms of England and Ireland.”—As if this were not degradation enough, he then put into the hands of the envoy a charter subscribed by himself, one archbishop, one bishop, nine earls, and two barons, by virtue of which he consented to hold England and Ireland of the Roman church in fee, by the annual rent of one thousand marks, reserving to himself the administration of justice and the rights of the crown. The instrument farther testified that this infamous surrender of the national freedom to a foreign potentate was made with the unanimous consent of his barons, no mention occurring of the people who seem to have had as little voice in the disposal of their own persons, as the hogs and cattle, that they fattened for the market.
If the barons had assented to this treaty in the hope of finding a protector in the Pope against the king’s tyranny, they quickly found their error. Upon their first appeal to their new suzerain he sided at once with John, when, with a facility that to us must appear surprising, they transferred their allegiance to Louis, the son of Philip. Hence arose a feud between Innocent and the French monarch, who immediately prepared to enforce his son’s claims by force of arms. But Ferrand, Earl of Flanders, refusing to follow his feudal superior in what he termed an unjust expedition, Philip was forced to defer the intended invasion of England ‘till he had reduced his refractory vassal to subjection. Fortunately for Ferrand the English fleet was ready to put to sea, and his secret friends now became his open allies, flying to his assistance, they for a moment turned the scale in his favour. The French fleet was defeated and would have been utterly destroyed had not William the Longsword, Earl of Salisbury, sent part of his army in pursuit of the plunderers, which gave time for the French army to come up, when the English were driven back again to their ships. Still even this imperfect success had the effect of causing Philip to retreat.
John would fain now have carried the war into France, but on reaching Jersey on his way to the Norman coast, he found that none of his barons had followed him. Instead of obeying his mandate to summon their retainers and come after him, they had assembled in council at St. Alban’s, whence they issued their resolves in the form of royal proclamations, But the wisdom of their enactment’s fully justified the illegality of these proceedings. It was the great merit of the barons that they sought to re-establish the laws of Henry I., which, as they comprehended those of the good King Edward, were a check upon any arbitrary exercise of power on the Part of the monarch.
Thus baffled in his projects, .John returned to England breathing vengeance against his barons, whom lie determined to punish by the quick, unhesitating process of military law. With this view lie begun his march to Nottingham, turning a deaf ear to the remonstrances of Langton, who reminded him that the accused had a right to be tried by their peers, and were willing to appear to their answer in the king’s court. To all such arguments .John only replied with more of justice than of courtsey, rule you the church, and leave me to govern the state,” upon which the primate had recourse to the usual church— weapons, and threatened to excommunicate all who should assist him. John was compelled to yield, and taking advantage of this delay, in a meeting that was convened in London at St. Paul’s, Langton persuaded the barons to bind themselves by oath to maintain their rights and freedom or die in their defence. But the Pope, who had reduced the king to the state of a subject, and who could scarcely hope for so tractable a tool in the fierce barons, threw the whole weight of his influence in the scale of John. Confident in this support, the English king did not hesitate to sail again for France, but in an action which took place at Bovines he sustained a total defeat, the Earl of Boulogne being killed, while Salisbury and, the Earl of Flanders were made prisoners. This led to a truce for five years, and the king returned to England, where the barons had not been idle during his absence. They had held several meetings, the result of which was a resolution to demand a charter of their liberties in the king’s court on the festival of Christmas, and, if denied, to coerce the king into their measures by force of arms. The day came; the demands were made and rejected; the majority of the barons remained true to their oaths, and John, foiled by their resolution, desired a respite till the following Easter, when he promised they should have a final answer; the Earl of Pembroke, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Bishop of Ely, becoming security for the fulfilment of the king’s promise, the barons after some demur consented.
It would seem that John asked this delay for no other purpose than to strengthen himself against the barons and place himself in a position to resist their demands. To win over the churchmen he granted them a variety of fresh privileges, all no less injurious to the privileges hitherto enjoyed by the crown than the claims set forward by the revolters; and as a climax to his concessions took the cross, though it is probable with no very serious intention of ever engaging in personal warfare with the Saracens. To so dutiful a son the holy father could not well do otherwise than grant the utmost influence of the papal see. He wrote to Langton, defending the king’s cause, and even insinuated, that the primate himself was accused of having fomented these disorders. In a second letter to the barons he rebuked them for endeavouring to extort by violence what they should have solicited as a favour, but promised if they proceeded with more moderation for the future he would use his influence with the king to obtain for them whatever they could reasonably require. In both his letters he annulled by his own authority all confederacies held since that of Dover, and forbade any such in time to come, under pain of excommunication.
Easter came, and the barons assembled at Stamford, whence they proceeded with an immense retinue to Brackley. The king, who was lying at Oxford, sent the primate with the Earls of Pembroke and Warenne, to learn their demands, and upon their bringing back the same paper that had been presented to him before, he returned an immediate and positive refusal. At the same time he appealed to the Pope, as his feudal lord, and the protector of all who had taken the cross, offering to abide by the advice of his court, in respect to any grievances that might have arisen since the time of Henry the Second. On their part the barons would accept of nothing short of their original demands, whereupon Pandulph and the Bishop of Exeter were earnest with the primate, to excommunicate them; but the latter replied that he was better acquainted with the intentions of Innocent, and that he should certainly excommunicate the foreign troops introduced by John, unless he speedily dismissed them. In this dilemma the king proposed to refer their dispute to eight arbitrators, the one half to be chosen by himself, and the other half by his opponents. The barons refused the offer, and having elected Robert Fitz-Walter, for their leader, proclaimed themselves the army of God and his holy Church, and invested Northampton. Deficient in military engines, they could hardly hope to carry the fortress, and the fidelity of the foreign garrison to their employer, rendered fruitless every attempt at corruption. To make amends for this first disappointment, Bedford was surrendered to them by its governor, and some of the chief citizens of the metropolis invited their approach to London. It was Sunday morning, when they arrived; the greater part of the inhabitants was at church; the gates stood open; and the city was occupied without opposition. The confederates then despatched letters to the other barons and knights, who had hitherto stood aloof, declaring that if they did not join the army they should be treated as enemies, a menace which prevailed with the generality of them.
It was now plain to John that he could only save his crown by submission, and yielding to circumstances he agreed to grant their full petition, and requested them to name a day and place of conference. Runnymead, a large level tract between Staines and Windsor, was in consequence appointed by them, and the time having come, the demands of the petitioners were presented to John under the title of a Charter of liberties. Nor was this all. They required as a further security that he should disband and send out of the kingdom all his foreign officers; that they should for two months longer retain possession of the city, while the Primate held in trust the tower; that twenty-five barons should be chosen, with full powers to decide all claims in conformity with the new charter; that the freemen in every county should have full license to swear fealty to the committee of barons, and should be held justified in taking up arms at their orders; and lastly, that if the king violated this compact, the barons might retain the tower as well as city, and levy war against him. John subscribed the charter, and acceded to these conditions, upon which the barons again did homage, and again received from him their honours and estates.
Much importance, even in modern times, has been attached to this charter, as if it were the foundation of the national liberties. But, in truth,, it was no attempt to establish sound legislative principles, nor did it even present a new code of law, in the proper meaning of the phrase; it was simply a practical remedy of the most crying of the abuses which then existed, and though highly useful at the time cannot be supposed to exercise much influence on the destinies of long-subsequent generations. The most praiseworthy clause in it and the only one which concerned the nation at large, was that which provided “ that every liberty and custom the king had granted to his tenants, as far as concerned him, should be observed by the clergy and laity towards their tenants as far as concerned them.”
During the whole of the meeting John is said to have exercised the most profound arts of dissimulation; speaking to all with kindness, and lavishing the fairest promises for the future. The moment it was over he gave way to the most unbounded passion, from which he was only recalled by his more temperate advisers, to meditate on the speediest means of vengeance. ‘Without loss of time lie despatched agents abroad, to raise foreign soldiers for a new war against his people, while by others he invoked the aid of Innocent, representing every concession that had been extorted from himself as an insult to the Pontiff of whom lie held his territories.
However privately these things might be managed, it would seem that they had not altogether escaped the notice of the barons, for their suspicions were excited, and, in consequence, writs were issued! to the twelve commissioners already elected in each county, in virtue of which they were to take possession of the lands, houses, and chattels of all who had refused to swear fealty to the twenty-five conservators. It they persisted in their contumacy beyond the fortnight allowed time for reflection, their goods were to be sold, and the proceeds given to the fund for the expedition to Palestine, while their lands amid tenements were held by the barons till they recanted.
Another interview now took place at Oxford; and, this proving fruitless, the king, whose object was to gain time, appointed a third for August. On the very day he should have met the barons lie was at Dover, receiving the foreign mercenaries, who were flocking to his standard, many of whom had brought with them their families, in the hope that they should obtain settlements at the expense of the people they were to help to subjugate. Alarmed by these proceedings and their evident tendency, the barons, who had hitherto hesitated to commence a civil war, now ordered William D’Albini to seize Rochester castle, which had been entrusted to the king by Langton as a pledge of his sincerity. But before D’Albini could supply the place with either provisions or warlike engines, in both of which it was deficient, John besieged it with his mercenaries, and the barons, though they marched out of London, did not dare to face the superior numbers of the royalists, and the garrison, after having nobly sustained many severe assaults, were compelled by famine to surrender. John ordered them all to be hanged on the spot, and it was only by the remonstrances of Sauvery de Mauleon, who feared it might be retaliated on his own officers, that he was persuaded to confine the knights in separate castles; the common soldiers found no intercessors, and were all hung, with the exception of the bowmen, who were probably deemed valuable enough to be taken into the tyrant’s service.
While John was thus employed in hanging his subjects, an answer to his requests came from Pope Innocent, annulling the charter as he had desired, and, amongst other reasons, upon the very valid ground that England had become a fief of the holy see, and that, if John had the will, he had not the right, to give away the privileges of the crown, such privileges being vested in the Pope himself. What right John ever had to give away the English people, like the Negroes on a West Indian estate, Innocent wholly forgot to mention.
The sturdy barons, however and for once we have reason to be thankful to them—were inflexible, and resolved to maintain their freedom against all parties. Finding his authority thus set at nought, Innocent ordered Langton to excommunicate the recusants; Langton refused; in consequence, he was suspended from the exercise of his archiepiscopal functions, and the sentence of excommunication was fulminated without his intervention. Even this dreaded measure produced no effect upon the barons; they maintained that the Pope’s authority extended only to ecclesiastical matters, and that he had no right to interfere in temporal concerns.
In this state of affairs it was plain that arms must decide the question of right. Confident in his superiority, the king divided his army into two parts, at the head of one of which he marched towards the north, while he entrusted the other to Salisbury, with orders to lay waste the offending counties of Essex, Hertford, Middlesex, Cambridge, Ely, and Huntingdon.
The march of this crowned ruffian was marked by all the horrors of Scythian warfare. Northumberland, Cumberland, and Durham, had been made over by the barons to Alexander, king of Scotland, as the price of his assistance, and these he laid waste without mercy, with his own hands setting fire in the morning to the house which had sheltered him through the night. Within eight days Morpeth, Mitford, Alnwick, Wark, and Roxburgh. were utterly consumed; the inhabitants of the districts through which this second Atala passed, if we may believe the monkish historians, were plundered, and in many instances tortured to death, expiring under cruelties too horrible for repetition; agricultural labour was suspended, and the few markets that still continued to be held, took place by night in the churchyards, which in some cases, but not always, were respected by the marauders as possessing the right of sanctuary, and thus obtained that forbearance from their religious fears, which they certainly would not have received from their humanity.
Unable to cope with the superior forces of the despot, the barons, as a last resource, offered the crown to Louis, the son of Philip of France. This young prince was allied to the Plantagenets, by his marriage with the niece of John, and having received four and twenty hostages from the noblest English families as a security for the good faith of the barons, he sent to their aid a numerous band of French knights, with a promise that lie himself would visit England, on the ensuing Easter, at the head of a large army. Philip himself affected to hesitate in giving his consent, and his son pretending to act upon his own rights sent agents to Rome to assure the Pontiff that he still continued to be a dutiful son of the Church, and was only asserting the claims of his wife to the English throne. His arguments were as good as such arguments usually are, but it was not likely they would be favourably received by Innocent, who himself laid claim to England as a fief of the holy see. He excommunicated Louis, and his adherents, and commanded the archbishop of Sens to launch the like thunders against the head of Philip; but the French bishops remained true to their sovereign, and in a synod at Melun resolved to disregard this mandate on the casuistical plea usual to such occasions, that the Pope had been misinformed. That Innocent would have punished their contumacy there can be little doubt, but as fortunately for them as it was unlucky for John, he died at this important juncture, and his death suspended all ecclesiastical proceedings at Rome for a while.
So favourable an event must have confirmed the resolves of Louis, if they needed confirmation. He sailed from Calais to invade England, but under no very favourable auspices; a storm dispersed his fleet; many ships were taken by the mariners of the Cinque Ports; and John lay in the neighbourhood of Dover with a large army. But either the English king distrusted his mercenaries, many of whom had been levied in territories feudally subservient to France, or his heart failed him when he had most need of courage, for instead of giving battle to the enemy, he retreated. His course lay through ‘Winchester to Bristol, which he had the good fortune to reach in safety after having laid waste the country before him, as if he had been in a foreign land, and not in the realm which had the misfortune to possess him for a sovereign.
By this time Louis, after having collected his stragglers, had landed at Sandwich, reduced Rochester castle, and marched on to London, where he received the homage of his new subjects. His general affability, and a wise disposal of the places in his gift, won the affections of the people, always greedy of new things, and the campaign now opened in full earnest. All the nearest counties to the capital submitted without a struggle, Yorkshire, and Lincolnshire, followed the same example, the Scottish king declared in his favour, and large numbers of the foreign mercenaries abandoned John, either returning to their homes, or joining the ranks of his enemy. The Gascons alone, or principally, remained faithful to his standard. Still he did not despair. If lie had lost the open country, his castles yet remained to him, and they were the chief fortresses of the kingdom, while in the papal legate, Gualo, he had a stanch ally, who did his best to defend him with all the weapons of the church.
The result showed that John had calculated wisely in relying on the strength of his fortified places. Louis was employed for months in the siege of Dover castle, and the barons under the earl of Nevers, were not more successful in their attempts upon that of Windsor. In the mean while the English king carried on with vigour, that species of warfare, which always seemed most congenial to his temper and habits; he plundered the land without stint or mercy, till the barons, roused to redoubled zeal by so general a pillage, endeavoured to surprise him at Wallingford. By some means John got notice of their scheme in time to retreat to Stamford, and the confederates finding themselves thus baffled joined Louis in the siege of Dover castle.
The royal cause had now every appearance of finally triumphing over its enemies. The king had the good fortune to reduce Lincoln, while Louis, neglecting the wise policy he had followed in the outset, had alienated the affections of his English allies, by grants to his French adherents of what in reason should have been the property of the natives. Suspicion and discontent arose amongst the confederates; a vague report got abroad of the Viscount de Melun having confessed on his death-bed that he had sworn with the prince and fifteen of his knights and nobles to treat the barons in the event of success, as men whose infidelity to their late sovereign was an earnest of treachery to their new one. Whether true or not, this tale is said to have had its influence on the English revolters, many of whom accepted the pardon that had been offered, and hastened to join the royal standard.
All these fair promises, however, were much qualified by a considerable loss of men and treasure, that were swallowed up in a whirlpool, occasioned by the afflux of the sea-tide, and the current of the Welland. The king, who had reached the land in safety, with the bulk of his army, was a helpless spectator of this disaster, which was only the fore-runner of his own death. On arriving at the Cistercian convent of Swineshead, he was seized with a violent fever, which has been variously attributed to poison, to a surfeit, and to what seems quite as probable, anxiety and fatigue. In the morning he would have continued his journey, but found himself obliged to exchange his horse for a litter, and with difficulty was able to get as far as Sleaford castle, where he passed the night. The next day he bore another short remove, and reached the castle of Newark, when it became evident to himself as well as to others, that his end was approaching. Here, after the religious ceremonies usual with men in his state, he appointed his eldest son, Henry, to succeed him on the throne, and expired in the forty-ninth year of his age. Of his character it were needless to say any thing; it has been sufficiently described in the events of his reign, which extended over a period of seventeen years.