The History of England Part 28

[FN [l] M. Paris, p. 165. Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 56.]

When Pandolf, after receiving the homage of John, returned to France, he congratulated Philip on the success of his pious enterprise; and informed him that John, moved by the terror of the French arms, had now come to a just sense of his guilt; had returned to obedience under the apostolic see, and even consented to do homage to the pope for his dominions; and having thus made his kingdom a part of St. Peter's patrimony, had rendered it impossible for any Christian prince, without the most manifest and most flagrant impiety, to attack him [m]. Philip was enraged on receiving this intelligence: he exclaimed that having, at the pope?s instigation, undertaken an expedition, which had cost him above sixty thousand pounds sterling, he was frustrated of his purpose, at the time when its success was become infallible: he complained that all the expense had fallen upon him; all the advantages had accrued to Innocent: he threatened to be no longer the dupe of these hypocritical pretences; and, a.s.sembling his va.s.sals, he laid before them the ill-treatment which he had received, exposed the interested and fraudulent conduct of the pope, and required their a.s.sistance to execute his enterprise against England, in which he told them, that, notwithstanding the inhibitions and menaces of the legate, he was determined to persevere. The French barons were, in that age, little less ignorant and superst.i.tious than the English: yet, so much does the influence of those religious principles depend on the present dispositions of men, they all vowed to follow their prince on his intended expedition, and were resolute not to be disappointed of that glory and those riches which they had long expected from this enterprise. The Earl of Flanders alone, who had previously formed a secret treaty with John, declaring against the injustice and impiety of the undertaking, retired with his forces [n]; and Philip, that he might not leave so dangerous an enemy behind him, first turned his arms against the dominions of that prince.

Meanwhile, the English fleet was a.s.sembled under the Earl of Salisbury, the king's natural brother; and though inferior in number, received orders to attack the French in their harbours. Salisbury performed this service with so much success, that he took three hundred ships; destroyed a hundred more [o]; and Philip, finding it impossible to prevent the rest from falling into the hands of the enemy, set fire to them himself, and thereby rendered it impossible for him to proceed any farther in his enterprise.

[FN [m] Trivet, p. 160. [n] M. Paris, p. 166. [o] Ibid. p. 166.

Chron. Dunst, vol. i. p. 59. Trivet, p. 157.]

John, exulting in his present security, insensible to his past disgrace, was so elated with this success, that he thought of no less than invading France in his turn, and recovering all those provinces which the prosperous arms of Philip had formerly ravished from him.

He proposed this expedition to the barons, who were already a.s.sembled for the defence of the kingdom. But the English n.o.bles both hated and despised their prince: they prognosticated no success to any enterprise conducted by such a leader; and pretending that their time of service was elapsed, and all their provisions exhausted, they refused to second his undertaking [p]. The king, however, resolute in his purpose, embarked with a few followers, and sailed to Jersey, in the foolish expectation that the barons would at last be ashamed to stay behind [q]. But finding himself disappointed, he returned to England; and, raising some troops, threatened to take vengeance on all his n.o.bles for their desertion and disobedience. The Archbishop of Canterbury, who was in a confederacy with the barons, here interposed; strictly inhibited the king from thinking of such an attempt; and threatened him with a renewal of the sentence of excommunication, if he pretended to levy war upon any of his subjects, before the kingdom were freed from the sentence of interdict [r].

[FN [p] M. Paris, p. 166. [q] M. Paris, p. 166. [r] Ibid. p. 167.]

The church had recalled the several anathemas p.r.o.nounced against John, by the same gradual progress with which she had at first issued them.

By receiving his homage, and admitting him to the rank of a va.s.sal, his deposition had been virtually annulled, and his subjects were again bound by their oaths of allegiance. The exiled prelates had then returned in great triumph, with Langton at their head; and the king, hearing of their approach, went forth to meet them, and throwing himself on the ground before them, he entreated them, with tears, to have compa.s.sion on him and the kingdom of England [s]. [MN July.]

The primate, seeing these marks of sincere penitence, led him to the chapter-house of Winchester, and there administered an oath to him, by which he again swore fealty and obedience to Pope Innocent and his successors; promised to love, maintain, and defend holy church and the clergy; engaged that he would re-establish the good laws of his predecessors, particularly those of St. Edward, and would abolish the wicked ones; and expressed his resolution of maintaining justice and right in all his dominions [t]. The primate next gave him absolution in the requisite forms, and admitted him to dine with him, to the great joy of all the people. The sentence of interdict, however, was still upheld against the kingdom. A new legate, Nicholas, Bishop of Frescati, came into England in the room of Pandolf; and he declared it to be the pope's intentions never to loosen that sentence till full rest.i.tution were made to the clergy of every thing taken from them, and ample reparation for all damages which they had sustained. He only permitted ma.s.s to be said with a low voice in the churches, till those losses and damages could be estimated to the satisfaction of the parties. Certain barons were appointed to take an account of the claims; and John was astonished at the greatness of the sums to which the clergy made their losses to amount. No less than twenty thousand marks were demanded by the monks of Canterbury alone; twenty-three thousand for the see of Lincoln; and the king, finding these pretensions to be exorbitant and endless, offered the clergy the sum of a hundred thousand marks for a final acquittal. The clergy rejected the offer with disdain; but the pope, willing to favour his new va.s.sal, whom he found zealous in his declarations of fealty, and regular in paying the stipulated tribute to Rome, directed his legate to accept of forty thousand. The issue of the whole was, that the bishops and considerable abbots got reparation beyond what they had any t.i.tle to demand; the inferior clergy were obliged to sit down contented with their losses; and the king, after the interdict was taken off, renewed, in the most solemn manner, and by a new charter, sealed with gold, his professions of homage and obedience to the see of Rome.

[FN [s] Ibid. p. 166. Ann. Waverl. p. 178. [t] M. Paris, p. 166.]

[MN 1214.] When this vexatious affair was at last brought to a conclusion, the king, as if he had nothing farther to attend to but triumphs and victories, went over to Poictou, which still acknowledged his authority [u]; and he carried war into Philip's dominions. He besieged a castle near Angiers; but the approach of Prince Lewis, Philip's son, obliged him to raise the siege with such precipitation, that he left his tents, machines, and baggage behind him; and he returned to England with disgrace. About the same time he heard of the great and decisive victory gained by the King of France at Bovines over the Emperor Otho, who had entered France at the head of a hundred and fifty thousand Germans; a victory which established for ever the glory of Philip, and gave full security to all his dominions. John could, therefore, think henceforth of nothing farther than of ruling peaceably his own kingdom; and his close connexions with the pope, which he was determined at any price to maintain, ensured him, as he imagined, the certain attainment of that object. But the last and most grievous scene of this prince?s misfortunes still awaited him; and he was destined to pa.s.s through a series of more humiliating circ.u.mstances than had ever yet fallen to the lot of any other monarch.

[FN [u] Queen Eleanor died in 1203 or 1204.]

[MN Discontents of the barons.]

The introduction of the feudal law into England by William the Conqueror had much infringed the liberties, however imperfect, enjoyed by the Anglo-Saxons in their ancient government, and had reduced the whole people to a state of va.s.salage under the king or barons, and even the greater part of them to a state of real slavery. The necessity also of intrusting great power in the hands of a prince, who was to maintain military dominion over a vanquished nation, had engaged the Norman barons to submit to a more severe and absolute prerogative than that to which men of their rank, in other feudal governments, were commonly subjected. The power of the crown, once raised to a high pitch, was not easily reduced; and the nation, during the course of a hundred and fifty years, was governed by an authority unknown, in the same degree, to all the kingdoms founded by the northern conquerors. Henry I., that he might allure the people to give an exclusion to his elder brother Robert, had granted them a charter, favourable in many particulars to their liberties; Stephen had renewed the grant; Henry II. had confirmed it: but the concessions of all these princes had still remained without effect; and the same unlimited, at least irregular authority, continued to be exercised both by them and their successors. The only happiness was, that arms were never yet ravished from the hands of the barons and people: the nation, by a great confederacy, might still vindicate its liberties; and nothing was more likely than the character, conduct, and fortunes of the reigning prince to produce such a general combination against him. Equally odious and contemptible, both in public and private life, he affronted the barons by his insolence, dishonoured their families by his gallantries, enraged them by his tyranny, and gave discontent to all ranks of men by his endless exactions and impositions [w]. The effect of these lawless practices had already appeared in the general demand made by the barons of a restoration of their privileges; and after he had reconciled himself to the pope, by abandoning the independence of the kingdom, he appeared to all his subjects in so mean a light, that they universally thought they might with safety and honour insist upon their pretensions.

[FN [w] Chron Mailr. p. 188. T. Wykes, p. 36. Ann. Waverl. p. 181.

W. Heming. p. 557.]

But nothing forwarded this confederacy so much as the concurrence of Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury; a man whose memory, though he was obtruded on the nation by a palpable encroachment of the see of Rome, ought always to be respected by the English. This prelate, whether he was moved by the generosity of his nature and his affection to public good; or had entertained an animosity against John on account of the long opposition made by that prince to his election; or thought that an acquisition of liberty to the people would serve to increase and secure the privileges of the church; had formed the plan of reforming the government, and had prepared the way for that great innovation, by inserting those singular clauses above-mentioned in the oath which he administered to the king, before he would absolve him from the sentence of excommunication. Soon after, in a private meeting of some princ.i.p.al barons at London, he showed them a copy of Henry I.'s charter, which, he said, he had happily found in a monastery; and he exhorted them to insist on the renewal and observance of it: the barons swore, that they would sooner lose their lives than depart from so reasonable a demand [x]. The confederacy began now to spread wider, and to comprehend almost all the barons in England; and a new and more numerous meeting was summoned by Langton at St. Edmondsbury, under colour of devotion. [MN Nov. 1.] He again produced to the a.s.sembly the old charter of Henry; renewed his exhortations of unanimity and vigour in the prosecution of their purpose; and represented in the strongest colours the tyranny to which they had so long been subjected, and from which it now behoved them to free themselves and their posterity [y]. The barons, inflamed by his eloquence, incited by the sense of their own wrongs, and encouraged by the appearance of their power and numbers, solemnly took an oath, before the high altar, to adhere to each other, to insist on their demands, and to make endless war on the king, till he should submit to grant them [z]. They agreed that, after the festival of Christmas, they would prefer in a body their common pet.i.tion; and, in the mean time, they separated, after mutually engaging that they would put themselves in a posture of defence, would enlist men and purchase arms, and would supply their castles with the necessary provisions.

[FN [x] M. Paris, p. 167. [y] M. Paris, p. 175. [z] Ibid. p. 176.]

[MN 1215. 6th Jan.]

The barons appeared in London on the day appointed, and demanded of the king, that, in consequence of his own oath before the primate, as well as in deference to their just rights, he should grant them a renewal of Henry's charter, and a confirmation of the laws of St.

Edward. The king, alarmed with their zeal and unanimity, as well as with their power, required a delay; promised that, at the festival of Easter, he would give them a positive answer to their pet.i.tion; and offered them the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of Ely, and the Earl of Pembroke, the mareschal, as sureties for his fulfilling this engagement [a]. The barons accepted of the terms, and peaceably returned to their castles.

[FN [a] Ibid. p. 176. M. West. p. 273.]

[MN 15th Jan.] During this interval, John, in order to break or subdue the league of his barons, endeavoured to avail himself of the ecclesiastical power, of whose influence he had, from his own recent misfortunes, had such fatal experience. He granted to the clergy a charter, relinquishing for ever that important prerogative, for which his father and all his ancestors had zealously contended; yielding to them the free election on all vacancies; reserving only the power to issue a conge d'elire, and to subjoin a confirmation of the election; and declaring that, if either of these were withheld, the choice should nevertheless be deemed just and valid [b]. He made a vow to lead an army into Palestine against the infidels, and he took on him the cross; in hopes that he should receive from the church that protection which she tendered to every one that had entered into this sacred and meritorious engagement [c]. And he sent to Rome his agent, William de Mauclerc, in order to appeal to the pope against the violence of his barons, and procure him a favourable sentence from that powerful tribunal [d]. The barons also were not negligent on their part in endeavouring to engage the pope in their interests: they despatched Eustace de Vescie to Rome; laid their case before Innocent as their feudal lord: and pet.i.tioned him to interpose his authority with the king, and oblige him to restore and confirm all their just and undoubted privileges [e].

[FN [b] Rymer, vol. i. p. 197. [c] Rymer, vol. i. p. 200. Trivet, p.

162. T. Wykes, p. 37. M. West. p. 273. [d] Rymer, vol. i. p. 184.

[e] Ibid.]

Innocent beheld with regret the disturbances which had arisen in England, and was much inclined to favour John in his pretensions. He had no hopes of retaining and extending his newly-acquired superiority over that kingdom, but by supporting so base and degenerate a prince, who was willing to sacrifice every consideration to his present safety: and he foresaw that, if the administration should fall into the hands of those gallant and high-spirited barons, they would vindicate the honour, liberty, and independence of the nation, with the same ardour which they now exerted in defence of their own. He wrote letters therefore to the prelates, to the n.o.bility, and to the king himself. He exhorted the first to employ their good offices in conciliating peace between the contending parties, and putting an end to civil discord: to the second he expressed his disapprobation of their conduct in employing force to extort concessions from their reluctant sovereign: the last he advised to treat his n.o.bles with grace and indulgence, and to grant them such of their demands as should appear just and reasonable [f].

[FN [f] Ibid. p. 196, 197.]

The barons easily saw, from the tenour of these letters, that they must reckon on having the pope, as well as the king, for their adversary; but they had already advanced too far to recede from their pretensions, and their pa.s.sions were so deeply engaged, that it exceeded even the power of superst.i.tion itself any longer to control them. They also foresaw, that the thunders of Rome, when not seconded by the efforts of the English ecclesiastics, would be of small avail against them; and they perceived that the most considerable of the prelates, as well as all the inferior clergy, professed the highest approbation of their cause. Besides that these men were seized with the national pa.s.sion for laws and liberty, blessings of which they themselves expected to partake, there concurred very powerful causes to loosen their devoted attachment to the apostolic see. It appeared from the late usurpations of the Roman pontiff, that he pretended to reap alone all the advantages accruing from that victory which, under his banners, though at their own peril, they had every where obtained over the civil magistrate. The pope a.s.sumed a despotic power over all the churches: their particular customs, privileges, and immunities, were treated with disdain: even the canons of general councils were set aside by his dispensing power: the whole administration of the church was centered in the court of Rome: all preferments ran of course in the same channel: and the provincial clergy saw, at least felt, that there was a necessity for limiting these pretensions. The legate, Nicholas, in filling those numerous vacancies which had fallen in England during an interdict of six years, had proceeded in the most arbitrary manner; and had paid no regard, in conferring dignities, to personal merit, to rank, to the inclination of the electors, or to the customs of the country. The English church was universally disgusted; and Langton himself, though he owed his elevation to an encroachment of the Romish see, was no sooner established in his high office than he became jealous of the privileges annexed to it, and formed attachments with the country subjected to his jurisdiction. These causes, though they opened slowly the eyes of men, failed not to produce their effect: they set bounds to the usurpations of the papacy: the tide first stopped, and then turned against the sovereign pontiff: and it is otherwise inconceivable how that age, so p.r.o.ne to superst.i.tion, and so sunk in ignorance, or rather so devoted to a spurious erudition, could have escaped falling into an absolute and total slavery under the court of Rome.

[MN 1215. Insurrection of the barons.]

About the time that the pope's letters arrived in England, the malecontent barons, on the approach of the festival of Easter, when they were to expect the king's answer to their pet.i.tion, met by agreement at Stamford; and they a.s.sembled a force, consisting of above two thousand knights, besides their retainers and inferior persons without number. [MN 27th April.] Elated with their power, they advanced in a body to Brackley, within fifteen miles of Oxford, the place where the court then resided; and they there received a message from the king, by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Earl of Pembroke, desiring to know what those liberties were which they so zealously challenged from their sovereign. They delivered to these messengers a schedule containing the chief articles of their demands; which was no sooner shown to the king than he burst into a furious pa.s.sion, and asked why the barons did not also demand of him his kingdom? swearing that he would never grant them such liberties as must reduce himself to slavery [g].

[FN [g] M. Paris, p. 176.]

No sooner were the confederated n.o.bles informed of John's reply than they chose Robert Fitz-Walter their general, whom they called THE MARESCHAL OF THE ARMY OF G.o.d AND OF HOLY CHURCH; and they proceeded without farther ceremony to levy war upon the king. They besieged the castle of Northampton during fifteen days, though without success [h]: the gates of Bedford castle were willingly opened to them by William Beauchamp, its owner: [MN 24th May.] they advanced to Ware in their way to London, where they held a correspondence with the princ.i.p.al citizens: they were received without opposition into that capital: and finding now the great superiority of their force, they issued proclamations, requiring the other barons to join them; and menacing them, in case of refusal or delay, with committing devastation on their houses and estates [i]. In order to show what might be expected from their prosperous arms, they made incursions from London, and laid waste the king's parks and palaces; and all the barons, who had hitherto carried the semblance of supporting the royal party, were glad of this pretence for openly joining a cause which they always had secretly favoured. The king was left at Odiham in Hampshire, with a poor retinue of only seven knights; and after trying several expedients to elude the blow, after offering to refer all differences to the pope alone, or to eight barons, four to be chosen by himself, and four by the confederates [k], he found himself at last obliged to submit at discretion.

[FN [h] Ibid. p. 177. Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 71. [i] M. Paris, p.

177. [k] Rymer, vol. i. p. 200.]

[MN 15th June. Magna Charta.]

A conference between the king and the barons was appointed at Runnemede, between Windsor and Staines; a place which has ever since been extremely celebrated on account of this great event. The two parties encamped apart, like open enemies; and after a debate of a few days, the king, with a facility somewhat suspicious, signed and sealed the charter which was required of him. [MN 19th June.] This famous deed, commonly called the GREAT CHARTER, either granted or secured very important liberties and privileges to every order of men in the kingdom; to the clergy, to the barons, and to the people.

The freedom of elections was secured to the clergy; the former charter of the king was confirmed, by which the necessity of a royal conge'

d'elire and confirmation was superseded: all check upon appeals to Rome was removed, by the allowance granted every man to depart the kingdom at pleasure: and the fines to be imposed on the clergy for any offence were ordained to be proportional to their lay estates, not to their ecclesiastical benefices.

The privileges granted to the barons were either abatements in the rigour of the feudal law, or determinations in points which had been left by that law, or had become, by practice, arbitrary and ambiguous.

The reliefs of heirs succeeding to a military fee were ascertained; an earl's and baron's at a hundred marks, a knight's at a hundred shillings. It was ordained by the charter, that, if the heir be a minor, he shall immediately, upon his majority, enter upon his estate, without paying any relief: the king shall not sell his wardship: he shall levy only reasonable profits upon the estate, without committing waste, or hurting the property: he shall uphold the castles, houses, mills, parks, and ponds: and if he commit the guardianship of the estate to the sheriff or any other, he shall previously oblige them to find surety to the same purpose. During the minority of a baron, while his lands are in wardship, and are not in his own possession, no debt which he owes to the Jews shall bear any interest. Heirs shall be married without disparagement; and before the marriage be contracted, the nearest relations of the person shall be informed of it. A widow, without paying any relief, shall enter upon her dower, the third part of her husband's rents: she shall not be compelled to marry, so long as she chooses to continue single; she shall only give security never to marry without her lord's consent. The king shall not claim the wardship of any minor who hold lands by military tenure of a baron, on pretence that he also holds lands of the crown by soccage or any other tenure. Scutages shall be estimated at the same rate as in the time of Henry I.; and no scutage or aid, except in the three general feudal cases, the king's captivity, the knighting of his eldest son, and the marrying of his eldest daughter, shall be imposed but by the great council of the kingdom: the prelates, earls, and great barons, shall be called to this great council, each by a particular writ; the lesser barons by a general summons of the sheriff. The king shall not seize any baron's land for a debt to the crown, if the baron possesses as many goods and chattels as are sufficient to discharge the debt. No man shall be obliged to perform more service for his fee than he is bound to by his tenure. No governor or constable of a castle shall oblige any knight to give money for castle-guard, if the knight be willing to perform the service in person, or by another able-bodied man; and if the knight be in the field himself, by the king's command, he shall be exempted from all other service of this nature. No va.s.sal shall be allowed to sell so much of his land as to incapacitate himself from performing his service to his lord.

These were the princ.i.p.al articles calculated for the interest of the barons; and had the charter contained nothing farther, national happiness and liberty had been very little promoted by it, as it would only have tended to increase the power and independence of an order of men who were already too powerful, and whose yoke might have become more heavy on the people than even that of an absolute monarch. But the barons, who alone drew and imposed on the prince this memorable charter, were necessitated to insert in it other clauses of a more extensive and more beneficent nature: they could not expect the concurrence of the people without comprehending, together with their own, the interests of inferior ranks of men; and all provisions which the barons, for their own sake, were obliged to make, in order to ensure the free and equitable administration of justice, tended directly to the benefit of the whole community. The following were the princ.i.p.al clauses of this nature.

It was ordained, that all the privileges and immunities above- mentioned, granted to the barons against the king, should be extended by the barons to their inferior va.s.sals. The king bound himself not to grant any writ, empowering a baron to levy aids from his va.s.sals, except in the three feudal cases. One weight and one measure shall be established throughout the kingdom. Merchants shall be allowed to transact all business, without being exposed to any arbitrary tolls and impositions; they and all freemen shall be allowed to go out of the kingdom and return to it at pleasure: London, and all cities and burghs, shall preserve their ancient liberties, immunities, and free customs: aids shall not be required of them but by the consent of the great council: no towns or individuals shall be obliged to make or support bridges but by ancient custom: the goods of every freeman shall be disposed of according to his will: if he die intestate, his heirs shall succeed to them. No officer of the crown shall take any horses, carts, or wood, without the consent of the owner. The king's courts of justice shall be stationary, and shall no longer follow his person: they shall be open to every one; and justice shall no longer be sold, refused, or delayed by them. Circuits shall be regularly held every year: the inferior tribunals of justice, the county court, sheriff's turn, and court leet, shall meet at their appointed time and place: the sheriffs shall be incapacitated to hold pleas of the crown, and shall not put any person upon his trial from rumour or suspicion alone, but upon the evidence of lawful witnesses. No freeman shall be taken or imprisoned, or dispossessed of his free tenement and liberties, or outlawed, or banished, or anywise hurt or injured, unless by the legal judgment of his peers, or by the law of the land; and all who suffered otherwise, in this or the two former reigns, shall be restored to their rights and possessions. Every freeman shall be fined in proportion to his fault; and no fine shall be levied on him to his utter ruin: even a villain or rustic shall not, by any fine, be bereaved of his carts, ploughs, and implements of husbandry.

This was the only article calculated for the interests of this body of men, probably at that time the most numerous in the kingdom.

It must be confessed, that the former articles of the great charter contain such mitigations and explanations of the feudal law as are reasonable and equitable; and that the latter involve all the chief outlines of a legal government, and provide for the equal distribution of justice and free enjoyment of property; the great objects for which political society was at first founded by men, which the people have a perpetual and unalienable right to recall, and which no time, nor precedent, nor statute, nor positive inst.i.tution, ought to deter them from keeping ever uppermost in their thoughts and attention. Though the provisions made by this charter might, conformably to the genius of the age, be esteemed too concise, and too bare of circ.u.mstances, to maintain the execution of its articles, in opposition to the chicanery of lawyers, supported by the violence of power; time gradually ascertained the sense of all the ambiguous expressions; and those generous barons who first extorted this concession still held their swords in their hands, and could turn them against those who dared, on any pretence, to depart from the original spirit and meaning of the grant. We may now, from the tenour of this charter, conjecture what those laws were of King Edward, which the English nation, during so many generations, still desired, with such an obstinate perseverance, to have recalled and established. They were chiefly these latter articles of MAGNA CHARTA; and the barons who, at the beginning of these commotions, demanded the revival of the Saxon laws, undoubtedly thought that they had sufficiently satisfied the people, by procuring them this concession, which comprehended the princ.i.p.al objects to which they had so long aspired. But what we are most to admire is, the prudence and moderation of those haughty n.o.bles themselves, who were enraged by injuries, inflamed by opposition, and elated by a total victory over their sovereign. They were content, even in this plenitude of power, to depart from some articles of Henry I.?s charter, which they made the foundation of their demands, particularly from the abolition of wardships, a matter of the greatest importance; and they seem to have been sufficiently careful not to diminish too far the power and revenue of the crown. If they appear, therefore, to have carried other demands to too great a height, it can be ascribed only to the faithless and tyrannical character of the king himself, of which they had long had experience, and which, they foresaw, would, if they provided no farther security, lead him soon to infringe their new liberties, and revoke his own concessions. This alone gave birth to those other articles, seemingly exorbitant, which were added as a rampart for the safeguard of the great charter.

The barons obliged the king to agree that London should remain in their hands, and the Tower be consigned to the custody of the primate, till the fifteenth of August ensuing, or till the execution of the several articles of the great charter [l]. The better to ensure the same end, he allowed them to choose five-and-twenty members from their own body, as conservators of the public liberties; and no bounds were set to the authority of these men either in extent or duration. If any complaint were made of a violation of the charter, whether attempted by the king, justiciaries, sheriffs, or foresters, any four of these barons might admonish the king to redress the grievance: if satisfaction were not obtained, they could a.s.semble the whole council of twenty-five, who, in conjunction with the great council, were empowered to compel him to observe the charter, and, in case of resistance, might levy war against him, attack his castles, and employ every kind of violence, except against his royal person, and that of his queen and children. All men throughout the kingdom were bound, under the penalty of confiscation, to swear obedience to the twenty- five barons; and the freeholders of each county were to choose twelve knights, who were to make report of such evil customs as required redress, conformably to the tenour of the great charter [m]. The names of those conservators were, the Earls of Clare, Albemarle, Gloucester, Winchester, Hereford, Roger BiG.o.d, Earl of Norfolk, Robert de Vere, Earl of Oxford, William Mareschal the younger, Robert Fitz-Walter, Gilbert de Clare, Eustace de Vescey, Gilbert Delaval, William de Mowbray, Geoffrey de Say, Roger de Mombezon, William de Huntingfield, Robert de Ros, the constable of Chester, William de Aubenie, Richard de Perci, William Malet, John Fitz-Robert, William de Lanvalay, Hugh de BiG.o.d, and Roger de Montfichet [n]. These men were, by this convention, really invested with the sovereignty of the kingdom: they were rendered co-ordinate with the king, or rather superior to him, in the exercise of the executive power: and as there was no circ.u.mstance of government which, either directly or indirectly, might not bear a relation to the security or observance of the great charter, there could scarcely occur any incident in which they might not lawfully interpose their authority.

[FN [l] Rymer, vol. i. p. 201. Chron. Dunst vol. i. p. 73. [m] This seems a very strong proof that the House of Commons was not then in being; otherwise the knights and burgesses from the several counties could have given in to the Lords a list of grievances, without so unusual an election. [n] M. Paris, p. 181.]

John seemed to submit pa.s.sively to all these regulations, however injurious to majesty: he sent writs to all the sheriffs, ordering them to constrain every one to swear obedience to the twenty-five barons [o]: he dismissed all his foreign forces: he pretended that his government was thenceforth to run in a new tenour, and be more indulgent to the liberty and independence of his people. But he only dissembled, till he should find a favourable opportunity for annulling all his concessions. The injuries and indignities which he had formerly suffered from the pope and the King of France, as they came from equals or superiors, seemed to make but small impression on him: but the sense of this perpetual and total subjection under his own rebellious va.s.sals sunk deep in his mind, and he was determined, at all hazards, to throw off so ignominious a slavery [p]. He grew sullen, silent, and reserved: he shunned the society of his courtiers and n.o.bles: he retired into the Isle of Wight, as if desirous of hiding his shame and confusion; but in this retreat he meditated the most fatal vengeance against all his enemies [q]. He secretly sent abroad his emissaries to enlist foreign soldiers, and to invite the rapacious Brabancons into his service, by the prospect of sharing the spoils of England, and reaping the forfeitures of so many opulent barons, who had incurred the guilt of rebellion by rising in arms against him [r]: and he despatched a messenger to Rome, in order to lay before the pope the great charter, which he had been compelled to sign, and to complain, before that tribunal, of the violence which had been imposed upon him [s].

[FN [o] Ibid. p. 182. [p] M. Paris, p. 183. [q] Ibid. [r] Ibid.

Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p.72. Chron. Malr. p. 188. [s] M. Paris, p.

183. Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 73.]

Innocent, considering himself as feudal lord of the kingdom, was incensed at the temerity of the barons, who, though they pretended to appeal to his authority, had dared, without waiting for his consent, to impose such terms on a prince, who, by resigning to the Roman pontiff his crown and independence, had placed himself immediately under the papal protection. He issued, therefore, a bull, in which, from the plenitude of his apostolic power, and from the authority which G.o.d had committed to him, to build and destroy kingdoms, to plant and overthrow, he annulled and abrogated the whole charter, as unjust in itself, as obtained by compulsion, and as derogatory to the dignity of the apostolic see. He prohibited the barons from exacting the observance of it: he even prohibited the king himself from paying any regard to it: he absolved him and his subjects from all oaths which they had been constrained to take to that purpose: and he p.r.o.nounced a general sentence of excommunication against every one who should persevere in maintaining such treasonable and iniquitous pretensions [t].

[FN [t] Rymer, vol. i. p. 203, 204, 205, 208. M. Paris, p. 184, 185, 187.]

[MN Renewal of the civil wars.]

The king, as his foreign forces arrived along with this bull, now ventured to take off the mask; and, under sanction of the pope's decree, recalled all the liberties which he had granted to his subjects, and which he had solemnly sworn to observe. But the spiritual weapon was found, upon trial, to carry less force with it than he had reason from his own experience to apprehend. The primate refused to obey the pope in publishing the sentence of excommunication against the barons: and though he was cited to Rome, that he might attend a general council there a.s.sembled, and was suspended, on account of his disobedience to the pope, and his secret correspondence with the king?s enemies [u]; though a new and particular sentence of excommunication was p.r.o.nounced by name against the princ.i.p.al barons [w]; John still found, that his n.o.bility and people, and even his clergy, adhered to the defence of their liberties, and to their combination against him: the sword of his foreign mercenaries was all he had to trust to for restoring his authority.

[FN [u] M. Paris, p. 189. [w] Rymer, vol. i. p. 211. M. Paris, p.

192.]

The barons, after obtaining the great charter, seem to have been lulled into a fatal security, and to have taken no rational measures, in case of the introduction of a foreign force, for rea.s.sembling their armies. The king was, from the first, master of the field; and immediately laid siege to the castle of Rochester, which was obstinately defended by William de Aubenie, at the head of a hundred and forty knights with their retainers, but was at last reduced by famine. [MN 30th Nov.] John, irritated with the resistance, intended to have hanged the governor and all the garrison; but, on the representation of William de Mauleon, who suggested to him the danger of reprisals, he was content to sacrifice, in this barbarous manner, the inferior prisoners only [x]. The captivity of William de Aubenie, the best officer among the confederated barons, was an irreparable loss to their cause; and no regular opposition was thenceforth made to the progress of the royal arms. The ravenous and barbarous mercenaries, incited by a cruel and enraged prince, were let loose against the estates, tenants, manors, houses, parks of the barons, and spread devastation over the face of the kingdom. Nothing was to be seen but the flames of villages and castles reduced to ashes, the consternation and misery of the inhabitants, tortures exercised by the soldiery to make them reveal their concealed treasures, and reprisals no less barbarous committed by the barons and their partisans on the royal demesnes, and on the estates of such as still adhered to the crown. The king, marching through the whole extent of England, from Dover to Berwick, laid the provinces waste on each side of him; and considered every estate, which was not his immediate property, as entirely hostile, and the object of military execution. The n.o.bility of the north, in particular, who had shown the greatest violence in the recovery of their liberties, and who, acting in a separate body, had expressed their discontent even at the concessions made by the great charter, as they could expect no mercy, fled before him with their wives and families, and purchased the friendship of Alexander, the young King of Scots, by doing homage to him.

[FN [x] M. Paris, p. 187.]

[MN Prince Lewis called over.]

The barons, reduced to this desperate extremity, and menaced with the total loss of their liberties, their properties, and their lives, employed a remedy no less desperate; and making applications to the court of France, they offered to acknowledge Lewis, the eldest son of Philip, for their sovereign, on condition that he would afford them protection from the violence of their enraged prince. Though the sense of the common rights of mankind, the only rights that are entirely indefeasible, might have justified them in the deposition of their king; they declined insisting, before Philip, on a pretension which is commonly so disagreeable to sovereigns, and which sounds harshly in the royal ears. They affirmed, that John was incapable of succeeding to the crown, by reason of the attainder pa.s.sed upon him during his brother's reign; though that attainder had been reversed, and Richard. had even, by his last will, declared him his successor.

They pretended that he was already legally deposed by sentence of the Peers of France, on account of the murder of his nephew; though that sentence could not possibly regard any thing but his transmarine dominions, which alone he held in va.s.salage to that crown. On more plausible grounds they affirmed, that he had already deposed himself by doing homage to the pope, changing the nature of his sovereignty, and resigning an independent crown for a fee under a foreign power.

And as Blanche of Castile, the wife of Lewis, was descended by her mother from Henry II., they maintained, though many other princes stood before her in the order of succession, that they had not shaken off the royal family, in choosing her husband for their sovereign.

Philip was strongly tempted to lay hold on the rich prize which was offered to him. The legate menaced interdicts and excommunications, if he invaded the patrimony of St. Peter, or attacked a prince who was under the immediate protection of the holy see [y]: but as Philip was a.s.sured of the obedience of his own va.s.sals, his principles were changed with the times, and he now undervalued as much all papal censures, as he formerly pretended to pay respect to them. His chief scruple was with regard to the fidelity which he might expect from the English barons in their new engagements, and the danger of intrusting his son and heir into the hands of men, who might, on any caprice or necessity, make peace with their native sovereign, by sacrificing a pledge of so much value. He therefore exacted from the barons twenty- five hostages of the most n.o.ble birth in the kingdom [z]; and having obtained this security, he sent over first a small army to the relief of the confederates; then more numerous forces, which arrived with Lewis himself at their head.

[FN [y] M. Paris, p. 194. M. West. p. 275. [z] M. Paris, p. 193.

Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 74.]

The first effect of the young prince's appearance in England was the desertion of John's foreign troops, who, being mostly levied in Flanders, and other provinces of France, refused to serve against the heir of their monarchy [a]. The Gascons and Poictevins alone, who were still John's subjects, adhered to his cause; but they were too weak to maintain that superiority in the field which they had hitherto supported against the confederated barons. Many considerable n.o.blemen deserted John?s party, the Earls of Salisbury, Arundel, Warrenne, Oxford, Albemarle, and William Mareschal the younger: his castles fell daily into the hands of the enemy; Dover was the only place which, from the valour and fidelity of Hubert de Burgh, the governor, made resistance to the progress of Lewis [b]: and the barons had the melancholy prospect of finally succeeding in their purpose, and of escaping the tyranny of their own king, by imposing on themselves and the nation a foreign yoke. But this union was of short duration between the French and English n.o.bles: and the imprudence of Lewis, who, on every occasion, showed too visible a preference to the former, increased that jealousy which it was so natural for the latter to entertain in their present situation [c]. The Viscount of Melun, too, it is said, one of his courtiers, fell sick at London, and finding the approaches of death, he sent for some of his friends among the English barons, and warning them of their danger, revealed Lewis?s secret intentions of exterminating them and their families as traitors to their prince, and of bestowing their estates and dignities on his native subjects, in whose fidelity he could more reasonably place confidence [d]: this story, whether true or false, was universally reported and believed; and concurring with other circ.u.mstances which rendered it credible, did great prejudice to the cause of Lewis. The Earl of Salisbury, and other n.o.blemen, deserted again to John's party [e]; and as men easily change sides in a civil war, especially where their power is founded on an hereditary and independent authority, and is not derived from the opinion and favour of the people, the French prince had reason to dread a sudden reverse of fortune. The king was a.s.sembling a considerable army, with a view of fighting one great battle for his crown; but pa.s.sing from Lynn to Lincolnshire, his road lay along the sea-sh.o.r.e, which was overflowed at high water; and not choosing the proper time for his journey, he lost in the inundation all his carriages, treasure, baggage, and regalia. The affliction for this disaster, and vexation from the distracted state of his affairs, increased the sickness under which he then laboured; and though he reached the castle of Newark, he was obliged to halt there, [MN 17th Oct. Death,] and his distemper soon after put an end to his life, in the forty-ninth year of his age, and eighteenth of his reign; and freed the nation from the dangers to which it was equally exposed by his success or by his misfortunes.

[FN [a] M. Paris, p. 195. [b] M. Paris, p. 198. Chron. Dunst. vol.

i. p. 75, 76. [c] W. Heming. p. 559. [d] M. Paris, p. 199. M. West.

p. 277. [e] Chron. Dunst. vol. i. p. 76.]

[MN and character of the king.] The character of this prince is nothing but a complication of vices, equally mean and odious; ruinous to himself, and destructive to his people. Cowardice, inactivity, folly, levity, licentiousness, ingrat.i.tude, treachery, tyranny, and cruelty; all these qualities appear too evidently in the several incidents of his life, to give us room to suspect that the disagreeable picture has been anywise overcharged by the prejudices of the ancient historians. It is hard to say whether his conduct to his father, his brother, his nephew, or his subjects, was most culpable; or whether his crimes, in these respects, were not even exceeded by the baseness which appeared in his transactions with the King of France, the pope, and the barons. His European dominions, when they devolved to him by the death of his brother, were more extensive than have ever, since his time, been ruled by an English monarch; but he first lost, by his misconduct, the flourishing provinces in France, the ancient patrimony of his family: he subjected his kingdom to a shameful va.s.salage under the see of Rome: he saw the prerogatives of his crown diminished by law, and still more reduced by faction: and he died at last, when in danger of being totally expelled by a foreign power, and of either ending his life miserably in prison, or seeking shelter, as a fugitive, from the pursuit of his enemies.