A Student's History of England Volume I Part 11

[Ill.u.s.tration: Norman House at Lincoln, called the Jews' House. Built about 1140. The square windows are of later date.]

_Books recommended for further study of Part II._

STUBBS, W. (Bishop of Oxford). Const.i.tutional History of England. Vol i. chaps. ix.-xiii.

FREEMAN, E. A. History of the Norman Conquest. Vols. iv. and v.

History of William Rufus.

GREEN, J. R. History of the English People. Vol. i. pp. 115-189.

NORGATE, Miss K. England under the Angevin Kings. Vols. i. and ii. pp.

1-388.

CUNNINGHAM, W. Growth of English Industry and Commerce during the Early and Middle Ages, pp. 129-173.

WAKEMAN, H. O., and Ha.s.sALL, A. Const.i.tutional Essays.

ADAMS, G. B. The Political History of England. Vol. ii. From the Norman Conquest to the Death of John (1066-1216).

PART III.

_THE GROWTH OF THE PARLIAMENTARY CONSt.i.tUTION._ =1199-1399=.

CHAPTER XII.

JOHN. =1199-1216=.

LEADING DATES

Accession of John 1199 Loss of Normandy 1204 England under an Interdict 1208 Magna Carta 1215 Death of John 1216

1. =The Accession of John. 1199.=--After Richard's death there were living but two descendants of Henry II. in the male line--John, Richard's only surviving brother, and Arthur, the young son of John's elder brother, Geoffrey. The English barons had to make their choice between uncle and nephew, and, as had been done in the days of aelfred, they preferred the grown man to the child. It was the last time when that principle of election was confessedly acted on. Archbishop Hubert in announcing the result used words which seem strange now: "Forasmuch," he declared to the people a.s.sembled to witness John's coronation, "as we see him to be prudent and vigorous, we all, after invoking the Holy Spirit's grace, for his merits no less than his royal blood, have with one consent chosen him for our king." In reality, John was of all men most unworthy. He was without dispute the worst of the English kings. Like William II. he feared not G.o.d nor regarded man. Though William indeed was more vicious in his private life, John's violence and tyranny in public life was as great as William's, and he added a meanness and frivolity which sank him far below him.

2. =John's First War with Philip II. 1199--1200.=--On the Continent John had a difficult game to play. Normandy and Aquitaine submitted to him, but Anjou and its dependent territories declared for Arthur, who was Duke of Brittany in right of his mother. Philip II., who had long been the rival of Richard, now took the field in =1199= as the rival of John in support of Arthur; but for the moment he ruined his chance of success by keeping in his own hands the castles which he took from John instead of making them over to Arthur. Arthur's supporters took offence, and in =1200= Philip made peace with John.

Philip acknowledged John as Richard's heir, but forced him in return to pay a heavy sum of money, and to make other concessions.

3. =John's Misconduct in Poitou. 1200--1201.=--John did not know how to make use of the time of rest which he had gained. Being tired of his wife, Avice of Gloucester, he persuaded some Aquitanian bishops to divorce him from her, though he took care to keep the lands which he had received from her at her marriage. He then married Isabella of Angouleme, though she was betrothed to a Poitevin n.o.ble, Hugh of Lusignan. Hugh was enraged, and, together with many of his neighbours, took arms against John. In =1201= John charged all the barons of Poitou with treason, and bade them clear their character by selecting champions to fight with an equal number of English and Norman knights.

4. =The Loss of Normandy and Anjou. 1202--1204.=--The Poitevin barons, instead of accepting the wager of battle, appealed to Philip as John's over-lord, and in =1202= Philip summoned John to answer their complaints before his peers. John not only did not appear, but made no excuse for his absence; and Philip afterwards pretended that the peers had condemned him to forfeit his lands. After this Philip, in alliance with Arthur, invaded Normandy. John's aged mother, Eleanor, who was far more able and energetic than her son, took up his cause against her grandson Arthur. She was besieged by Arthur at Mirebeau when John came to her help, and not only raised the siege, but carried off Arthur as a prisoner. Many of his va.s.sals rose against him, and finding himself unable to meet them in the field he wreaked his vengeance on his helpless prisoner. A little before Easter =1203= Arthur ceased to live. How the boy died has never been known, but it was generally believed that he was drowned in the Seine near Rouen--some said by his uncle's own hands. The murderer was the first to suffer from the crime. Philip at once invaded Normandy. The Norman barons had long ceased to respect John, and very few of them would do anything to help him. Philip took castle after castle. John was indeed capable of a sudden outbreak of violence, but he was incapable of sustained effort. He now looked sluggishly on, feasting and amusing himself whilst Philip was conquering Normandy. "Let him alone," he lazily said; "I shall some day win back all that he is taking from me now." His best friends dropped off from him. The only fortress which made a long resistance was that Chateau Gaillard which Richard had built to guard the Seine. In =1204= it was at last taken, and before the end of that year Normandy, Maine, Anjou, and Touraine, together with part of Poitou, had submitted to Philip.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Effigy of King John on his monument in Worcester Cathedral.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Isabella, wife of King John. From her monument at Fontevrault.]

5. =Causes of Philip's Success.=--It was not owing to John's vigour that Aquitaine was not lost as well as Normandy and Anjou. Philip had justified his attack on John as being John's feudal lord, and as being therefore bound to take the part of John's va.s.sals whom he had injured. Hitherto the power of the king over his great va.s.sals, which had been strong in England, had been weak in France. Philip made it strong in Normandy and Anjou because he had the support there of the va.s.sals of John. That these va.s.sals favoured him was owing partly to John's contemptible character, but also to the growth of national unity between the inhabitants of Normandy and Anjou on the one hand and those of Philip's French dominions on the other. Normans and Angevins both spoke the same language as the Frenchmen of Paris and its neighbourhood. Their manners and characters were very much the same, and the two peoples very soon blended with one another. They had been separated merely because their feudal organisation had been distinct, because the lord over one was John and over the other was Philip. In Aquitaine it was otherwise. The language and manners there, though much nearer to those of the French than they were to those of the English, differed considerably from the language and manners of the Frenchmen, Normans, and Angevins. What the men of Aquitaine really wanted was independence. They therefore now clung to John against Philip as they had clung to Richard against Henry II. They resisted Henry II. because Henry II. ruled in Anjou and Normandy, and they wished to be free from any connection with Anjou and Normandy. They resisted Philip because Philip now ruled in Anjou and Normandy. They were not afraid of John any longer, because they thought that now that England alone was left to him, he would be too far off to interfere with them.

6. =The Election of Stephen Langton to the Archbishopric of Canterbury. 1205.=--In England John had caused much discontent by the heavy taxation which he imposed, not with the regularity of Henry II.

and Hubert Walter, but with unfair inequality. In =1205= Archbishop Hubert Walter died. The right of choosing a new archbishop lay with the monks of the monastery of Christchurch at Canterbury, of which every archbishop, as the successor of St. Augustine, was the abbot.

This right, however, had long been exercised only according to the wish of the king, who practically named the archbishop. This time the monks, without asking John's leave, hurriedly chose their sub-prior Reginald, and sent him off with a party of monks to Rome, to obtain the sanction of the Pope. Reginald was directed to say nothing of his election till he reached Rome; but he was a vain man, and had no sooner reached the Continent than he babbled about his own dignity as an archbishop. When John heard this he bade the monks choose the Bishop of Norwich, John de Grey, the king's treasurer; and the monks, thoroughly frightened, chose him as if they had not already made their election. John had, however, forgotten to consult the bishops of the province of Canterbury, who had always been consulted by his father and brother, and they too sent messengers to the Pope to complain of the king.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Bishop Marshall of Exeter, died 1206; from his tomb at Exeter, showing a bishop vested for ma.s.s.]

7. =Innocent III. and Stephen Langton. 1206.=--The Pope was Innocent III., who at once determined that John must not name bishops whose only merit was that they were good state officials. Being an able man, he soon discovered that Reginald was a fool. He therefore in =1206= sent for a fresh deputation of monks, and, as soon as they arrived in Rome, bade them make a new choice in the name of their monastery. At Innocent's suggestion they chose Stephen Langton, one of the most pious and learned men of the day, whose greatness of character was hardly suspected by anyone at the time.

8. =John's Quarrel with the Church. 1206--1208.=--The choice of an archbishop in opposition to the king was undoubtedly something new.

The archbishopric of Canterbury was a great national office, and a king as skilful as Henry II. would probably have succeeded in refusing to allow it to be disposed of by the Pope and a small party of monks.

John was unworthy to be the champion of any cause whatever. In =1207=, after an angry correspondence with Innocent, he drove the monks of Christchurch out of the kingdom. Innocent in reply threatened England with an interdict, and in the spring of =1208= the interdict was published.

9. =England under an Interdict. 1208.=--An interdict carried with it the suppression of all the sacraments of the Church except those of baptism and extreme unction. Even these were only to be received in private. No words of solemn import were p.r.o.nounced at the burial of the dead. The churches were all closed, and to the men of that time the closing of the church-doors was like the closing of the very gate of heaven. In the choice of the punishment inflicted there was some sign that the Papacy was hardly as strong in the thirteenth as it had been in the eleventh century. Gregory VII. had smitten down kings by personal excommunication; Innocent III. found it necessary to stir up resistance against the king by inflicting sufferings on the people.

Yet there is no evidence of any indignation against the Pope. The clergy rallied almost as one man round Innocent, and songs proceeded from the monasteries which mocked the few official bishops who took John's side as money-makers who cared more for marks than for Mark, and more for lucre than for Luke, whilst John de Grey was branded with the t.i.tle of 'that beast of Norwich.' John taking no heed of the popular feeling, seized the property of the clergy who obeyed the interdict. Yet he was not without fear lest the barons should join the clergy against him, and to keep them in obedience he compelled them to entrust to him their eldest sons as hostages. One lady to whom this order came replied that she would never give her son to a king who had murdered his nephew.

10. =John Excommunicated. 1209.=--In =1209= Innocent excommunicated John himself. John cared nothing for being excluded from the services of the Church, but he knew that if the excommunication were published in England few would venture to sit at table with him, or even to speak with him. For some time he kept it out of the country, but it became known that it had been p.r.o.nounced at Rome, and even his own dependents began to avoid his company. He feared lest the barons whom he had wearied with heavy fines and taxes might turn against him, and he needed large sums of money to defend himself against them. First he turned on the Jews, threw them into prison, and after torturing those who refused to pay, wrung from them 40,000_l._ The abbots were next summoned before him and forced by threats to pay 100,000_l._ Besides this the wealthy Cistercians had to pay an additional fine, the amount of which is uncertain, but of which the lowest estimate is 27,000_l._ In =1211= some of the barons declared against John, but they were driven from the country, and those who remained were harshly treated.

Some of their sons who had been taken as hostages were hanged or starved to death.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Parsonage house of early thirteenth-century date at West Dean, Suss.e.x.]

11. =The Pope threatens John with Deposition. 1212--1213.=--In =1212= Innocent's patience came to an end, and he announced that he would depose John if he still refused to give way, and would transfer his crown to his old enemy, Philip II. The English clergy and barons were not likely to oppose the change. Philip gathered a great army in France to make good the claim which he expected Innocent to give him.

John, indeed, was not entirely without resource. The Emperor Otto IV.

was John's sister's son, and as he too had been excommunicated by Innocent he made common cause with John against Philip. Early in =1213= John gathered an army of 60,000 men to resist Philip's landing, and if Otto with his Germans were to attack France from the east, a French army would hardly venture to cross into England, unless indeed it had no serious resistance to fear. John, however, knew well that he could not depend on his own army. Many men in the host hated him bitterly, and he feared deposition, and perhaps death, at the hands of those whom he had summoned to his help.

12. =John's Submission. 1213.=--Under these circ.u.mstances John preferred submission to the Pope to submission to Philip or his own barons. He invited Pandulf, the Pope's representative, to Dover. He swore to admit Stephen Langton as Archbishop of Canterbury, to restore to their rights all those of the clergy or laity whom he had banished, and to give back the money which he had wrongfully exacted. Two days later he knelt before Pandulf and did homage to the Pope for England and Ireland. He was no longer to be an independent king but the Pope's va.s.sal. In token of his va.s.salage he agreed that he and his successors should pay to Innocent and his successors 1,000 marks a year, each mark being equal to 13_s._ 4_d._, or two-thirds of a pound. Innocent had reached his aim as far as John was concerned. In his eyes the Papacy was not merely the guide of the Church, it was an inst.i.tution for controlling kings and forcing them to act in accordance with the orders of the Popes. It remained to be seen whether the Pope's orders would be always unselfish, and whether the English barons and clergy would submit to them as readily as did this most miserable of English kings.

13. =The Resistance of the Barons and Clergy. 1213.=--At first John seemed to have gained all that he wanted by submission. Pandulf bade Philip abandon all thought of invading England, and when Philip refused to obey, John's fleet fell upon the French fleet off the coast of Flanders and destroyed it. John even proposed to land with an army in Poitou and to reconquer Normandy and Anjou. His subjects thought that he ought to begin by fulfilling his engagements to them. John having received absolution, summoned four men from each county to meet at St. Albans to a.s.sess the damages of the clergy which he had bound himself to make good. The meeting thus summoned was the germ of the future House of Commons. It was not a national political a.s.sembly, but it was a national jury gathered together into one place. The exiled barons were recalled, and John now hoped that his va.s.sals would follow him to Poitou. They refused to do so, alleging their poverty and the fact that they had already fulfilled their feudal obligation of forty days' service by attending him at Dover. They had, in fact, no interest in regaining Normandy and Anjou for John. Though the English barons still spoke French, and were proud of their Norman descent, they now thought of themselves as Englishmen and cared for England alone. John turned furiously on the barons, and was only hindered from attacking them by the new Archbishop, who threatened to excommunicate everyone who took arms against them. It was time for all Englishmen who loved order and law to resist John. Stephen Langton put himself at the head of the movement, and at a great a.s.sembly at St. Paul's produced a charter of Henry I., by which that king had promised to put an end to the tyranny of the Red King, and declared amidst general applause that it must be renewed by John. It was a memorable scene. Up to this time it had been necessary for the clergy and the people to support the king against the tyranny of the barons. Now the clergy and people offered their support to the barons against the tyranny of the king. John had merely the Pope on his side. Innocent's view of the situation was very simple. John was to obey the Pope, and all John's subjects were to obey John. A Papal legate arrived in England, fixed the sum which John was to pay to the clergy, and refused to listen to the complaints of those who thought themselves defrauded.

14. =The Battle of Bouvines. 1214.=--In =1214= John succeeded in carrying his barons and their va.s.sals across the sea. With one army he landed at Roch.e.l.le, and recovered what had been lost to him on the south of the Loire, but failed to make any permanent conquests to the north of that river. Another army, under John's illegitimate brother, the Earl of Salisbury, joined the Emperor Otto in an attack on Philip from the north. The united force of Germans and English was, however, routed by Philip at Bouvines, in Flanders. "Since I have been reconciled to G.o.d," cried John, when he heard the news, "and submitted to the Roman Church, nothing has gone well with me." He made a truce with Philip, and temporarily renounced all claims to the lands to the north of the Loire.

15. =The Struggle between John and the Barons. 1214--1215.= When John returned he called upon all his va.s.sals who had remained at home to pay an exorbitant scutage. In reply they met at Bury St. Edmunds. The charter of Henry I., which had been produced at St. Paul's the year before, was again read, and all present swore to force John to accept it as the rule of his own government. John asked for delay, and attempted to divide his antagonists by offering to the clergy the right of free election to bishoprics and abbacies. Then he turned against the barons. Early in =1215= he brought over a large force of foreign mercenaries, and persuaded the Pope to threaten the barons with excommunication. His attempt was defeated by the constancy of Stephen Langton. The demands of the barons were placed in writing by the archbishop, and, on John's refusal to accept them, an army was formed to force them on the king. The army of G.o.d and the Holy Church, as it was called, grew rapidly. London admitted it within its walls, and the accession of London to the cause of the barons was a sign that the traders of England were of one mind with the barons and the clergy. John found that their force was superior to his own, and at Runnimede on June 15, =1215=, confirmed with his hand and seal the articles of the barons, with the full intention of breaking his engagement as soon as he should be strong enough to do so.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Effigy of a knight in the Temple Church, London, showing armour worn between 1190 and 1225.]

16. =Magna Carta. 1215.=--_Magna Carta_, or the Great Charter, as the articles were called after John confirmed them, was won by a combination between all cla.s.ses of freemen, and it gave rights to them all.

(_a_) _Its Concessions._--The Church was to be free, its privileges were to be respected, and its right to free elections which John had granted earlier in the year was not to be infringed on. As for the laity, the tenants-in-chief were to pay only fixed reliefs when they entered on their estates. Heirs under age were to be the king's wards, but the king was to treat them fairly, and do nothing to injure their land whilst it was in his hands. The king might continue to find husbands for heiresses and wives for heirs, but only amongst those of their own cla.s.s. The tenants-in-chief again were bound to pay aids to the king when he needed ransom from imprisonment, or money to enable him to bear the expenses of knighting his eldest son or of marrying his eldest daughter. For all other purposes the king could only demand supplies from his tenants-in-chief with the consent of the Common Council of the realm. As only the tenants-in-chief were concerned, this Common Council was the Great Council of tenants-in-chief, such as had met under the Norman and Angevin kings. A fresh attempt, however, was made to induce the smaller tenants-in-chief to attend, in addition to the bishops, abbots, and barons, by a direction that whilst these were to be summoned personally, the sheriffs should in each county issue a general summons to the smaller tenants-in-chief. Though the sub-tenants had no part in the Common Council of the realm, they were relieved by a direction that they should pay no more aids to their lords than their lords paid to the king, and by a general declaration that all that had been granted to their lords by the king should be allowed by their lords to them. The Londoners and other townsmen had their privileges a.s.sured to them; and all freemen were secured against heavy and irregular penalties if they committed an offence.

(_b_) _Its Securities._--Such were the provisions of this truly national act, which Englishmen were for ages engaged in maintaining and developing. The immediate question was how to secure what had been gained. The first thing necessary for this purpose was to make the courts of law the arbitrators between the king and his subjects. In a series of articles it was declared that the sworn testimony of a man's peers should be used whenever fines or penalties were imposed, and this insistence on the employment of the jury system as it then existed was emphasised by the strong words to which John placed his seal: "No freeman may be taken, or imprisoned, or disseised, or outlawed, or banished, or in any way destroyed, nor will we go against him, or send against him, except by the lawful judgment of his peers, or by the law of the land. To none will we sell or deny or delay right or justice." It was a good security if it could be maintained, but it would avail nothing against a king who was willing and able to use force to set up the old tyranny once more. In the first place John must dismiss all his foreign mercenaries. So little, however, was John trusted that it was thought necessary in the second place to establish a body of twenty-five--twenty-four barons and the Mayor of London--which was to guard against any attempt of the king to break his word. If John infringed upon any of the articles of the Charter the twenty-five, with the a.s.sistance of the whole community of the kingdom, had the right of distraining upon the king's lands till enough was obtained to make up the loss to the person who had suffered wrong. In other words, there was to be a permanent organisation for making war upon the king.

17. =War between John and the Barons. 1215--1216.=--John waited for the moment of vengeance. Not only did he refuse to send his mercenaries away, but he sent to the Continent for large reinforcements. Pope Innocent declared the barons to be wicked rebels, and released John from his oath to the Great Charter. War soon broke out. John's mercenaries were too strong for the barons, and in the beginning of =1216= almost all England with the exception of London had been overrun by them. Though the Pope laid London under an interdict, neither the citizens nor the barons paid any attention to it. They sent to Louis, the eldest son of Philip of France, to invite him to come and be their king in John's stead. Louis was married to John's niece, and might thus be counted as a member of the English royal family. The time had not yet come when a man who spoke French was regarded as quite a foreigner amongst the English barons. On May 21, =1216=, Louis landed with an army in the Isle of Thanet.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A silver penny of John, struck at Dublin.]