But it was the Pope's kingdom now, not that of craven John; and Innocent sent a legate, Nicholas, Cardinal Bishop of Tusculum, to settle the affair. John debased himself by repeating the homage and oath of fealty, and by giving a fresh charter of submission, sealed not with wax, but with gold, as if to make it more binding.
The injuries done to the barons by the free-companions were beyond the King's power of restitution, but the Pope adjudged him to pay 15,000 marks for the present, after which John set off on his disastrous journey to Bouvines. In his absence, Fitzpiers died, and this quite consoled him for his defeat. "It's well," he cried; "he is gone to shake hands in hell with our primate Hubert! Now am I first truly a King!"
But Geoffrey's storm was near its bursting, precipitated perhaps by the loss of this last curb on the lawless King. Langton was seriously displeased with the legate, who had taken all the Church patronage into his hands, and was giving it away to Italians, foreigners, children-nay, even promising it for the unborn. The Archbishop sent his brother Simon to appeal to the Pope, but could get no redress. Innocent was displeased with him for opposing the _protege_ of the papal see; and certainly he had no right to complain of the Roman patronage while he held the see of Canterbury.
However, he was too much of an Englishman to see his Church or his country trampled down; and at Christmas, 1214, there was another assembly of the barons at Bury St. Edmund's. The plans were arranged, and an oath taken by each singly, kneeling before the high altar in the church of the royal Saxon saint, that if the laws were rejected, they would withdraw their oaths of allegiance.
They set out for Worcester to present their charter to the King, but he got intelligence of their design, hastened to London, and put himself under the protection of the Knights of the Temple. They followed him, and on Twelfth Day laid the charter before him. He took a high tone, and only insisted on their declaring by hand and seal that they would never so act again; but finding this was not the way to treat such men, promised, on the security of the Archbishop, the Bishop of Ely, and Earl of Pembroke, to grant what they asked at Easter.
He used the space thus gained in taking the Cross, that he might enjoy the immunities of a Crusader, fortifying his castles, and sending for free-companions, while both parties wrote explanations to the Pope. John obtained encouragement, Langton was severely reprehended; Innocent declared all the confederacies of the barons null and void, and forbade them for the future, under pain of excommunication.
In Easter-week the barons met at Stamford, with 2,000 knights and their squires. Their charter was carried to the King at Oxford by the Archbishop and the Earls of Pembroke and Warenne. They were received with fury. "Why do not they ask my crown at once?" cried John. "Do they think I will grant them liberties that would make me a slave?"
Then, with more moderation, he proposed to appeal to the Pope, and to redress all grievances that had arisen in his own time or in that of his brothers; but they still adhered to their demands, and when Pandulfo called on the Primate to excommunicate the insurgent barons, Langton made answer that he was better instructed in the Pope's views, and unless the King dismissed his foreign soldiers, he should be obliged to excommunicate them.
John offered to refer the matter to nine umpires-namely, Innocent, four chosen by himself, and four by the barons; but this also was rejected: the barons would have no terms short of their Great Charter; and electing the most injured of all, Robert Fitzwalter, as their general, they marched against Northampton. It was garrisoned by the King's foreign mercenaries, who refused all attempts to corrupt them; and as the want of machines made it impossible to take it, the barons proceeded to Bedford after fifteen days, their spirits somewhat damped.
However, Bedford opened its gates, and tidings reached them that London was favorably disposed. They therefore proceeded thither, and arrived on the first Sunday in June, early in the morning, when the gates were opened, and the burghers all at mass in the churches. They entered in excellent order, took possession of the Tower, and thence sent forth proclamations, terming themselves the Army of God and of Holy Church, and calling on every one to join them, under pain of being used as traitors and rebels.
The whole country responded; scarcely a man, Saxon or Norman, who was not with them in spirit; and John, then at Odiham, in Hampshire, found himself deserted by all his knights save seven. He was at first in deadly terror; but soon rallying his spirits, he resolved to cajole the barons, pronounced that what his lieges had done was well done, and despatched the Earl of Pembroke to assure them of his readiness and satisfaction in granting their desires: all that was needed was a day and place for the meeting.
"The day, the 15th of June; the place, Runnymede," returned his loving subjects.
The broad, smooth, green meadow of Runnymede, on the bank of the Thames, spreading out fair and fertile beneath the heights of Windsor, became a watchword of English rights.
The stalwart barony of England, Norman in name and rank, but with Saxon blood infused in their veins, and strength consisting of stout Saxon yeomen and peasantry, there arrayed themselves, with Robert Fitzwalter for their spokesman and leader; and thither, on the other hand, came, from Windsor Castle, King John, accompanied by Cardinal Pandulfo, Amaury, Grand Master of the Temple, Langton, and seven other bishops, and Pembroke with twelve nobles, but scarcely one of these, except the two first, whose heart was not with the barons on the other side.
The charter was spread forth-the Great Charter, which, in the first place, asserted the liberty of the Church of England, and then of its people. It forbade the King to exact arbitrary sums from his subjects without the consent of a council of the great crown vassals; it required that no man should be made an officer of justice without knowledge of the law; and forced from the King the promise not to sell, refuse, or defer right or justice to any man; neither to seize the person or goods of any free man without the lawful judgment of his peers, or by the law of the land. The same privileges were extended to the cities, but the serfs or villeins had no part in them; the nobility of England had not yet learnt to consider them worthy of regard. Much, however, was done by the recognition of the law, and Magna Charta has been the foundation of all subsequent legislation in England. A lesser charter was added on the oppressive Forest Laws, which it in some degree mitigated by lessening the number of royal forests, and appointing nobles in each county to keep in check the violence of the King's keepers.
The original Charter itself, creased with age and injured by fire, but with John's great seal still appended to it, remains extant in the British Museum, a copy beside it, bearing in beautiful old writing in Latin the clear, sharp, lawyer-like terms with which the barons, who, rough and turbulent as they were, must have had among them men of great legal ability, sought to bind their tyrant to respect their lives and lands.
Four-and-twenty of their number, and with them the Mayor of London, were appointed to enforce the observance of the Charter, which was sent out to the sheriffs in all the counties to be proclaimed by them with sounds of trumpet at the market-crosses and in the churches; while twelve men, learned in the law, were to be chosen to inquire into and re dress all grievances since the accession. Moreover, every Poitevin, Brabancon, and other free-companion in the King's service was to be immediately dismissed, and the barons were to hold the city of London, and Langton the Tower, for the next two months.
The Charter was thus sealed, June 15th, 1215; and John, as long as he was in the presence of the barons, put a restraint on himself, and acted as if it was granted, as it professed to be, of his own free will and pleasure, speaking courteously to all who approached, and treating the matter in hand with his usual gay levity, signing the Charter with so little heed to its contents that the wiser heads must have gathered that he had no intention of being bound by them. However, they had achieved a great victory, and, after parting with him, amused themselves by arranging for a tournament to be held at Stamford; while John, when within the walls of Windsor, gave vent to his rage, t
hrew himself on the ground, rolled about gnawing sticks and straws, uttering maledictions upon the barons, and denouncing vengeance against the nation that had made him an underling to twenty-five kings.
On recovering, he ordered his horse, and secretly withdrew to the Isle of Wight, where he saw no one but the piratical fishermen of the place, whose manners he imitated, and even, it is said, joined in some of their lawless expeditions. At the same time he despatched letters to the Brabancons and Gascons, inviting them to the conquest of England, and promising them the castles and manors of his present subjects.
The barons gained some tidings of his proceedings, and were on their guard. Robert Fitzwalter wrote letters appointing the tournament to be held, not at Stamford, but on Hounslow Heath, summoning the knights to it with their arms and horses, and promising, as the prize of the tournay, a she-bear, which the young lady of a castle had sent them.
To what brave knight the she-bear was awarded, history says not; for in the midst came the tidings that the Pope had been greatly enraged, had annulled the Charter as prejudicial to the power of the Church, and had commanded the Archbishop of Canterbury to dissolve all leagues among the vassals under pain of excommunication. The barons, having the Archbishop on their side, thought little of the thunders of the Pope; but John was emboldened to come forth, offer a conference at Oxford, which he did not attend, and then go to Dover to receive the free-companions, who flocked from all quarters.
The barons sent Stephen Langton to Rome to plead their cause, and found themselves obliged to take up arms. William de Albini, one of the twenty-five sureties, was sent to possess himself of the Castle of Rochester; but before he could bring in sufficient stores, he was invested by John, with Savary de Mauleon, called the Bloody, and a band of free-companions, whose _noms de guerre_ were equally truculent-namely, the Merciless, the Murderer, the Iron-hearted. One of the archers within the walls bent his bow at the King's breast, and said to the castellane, "Shall I deliver you from yonder mortal foe?" "No; hold thy hand," said Albini; "strike not the evil beast; shouldst thou fail, thy doom would be certain." "Then, betide what God will, I hold my hand!" said the archer.
For two months these brave men held out, but by St. Andrew's Day they had eaten all their horses, and the walls were battered down, so that Albini was forced to surrender. John was for hanging the whole garrison, but Mauleon said, "Sir, the war is not over; the chances are beyond reckoning. If we begin by hanging your barons, your barons may end by hanging us." So Albini and the nobles were spared, but the archers and men-at-arms were hung in halters to every tree in the forest.
Meanwhile, the Archbishop had failed at Rome, and partly by his own fault, for he had tried to make his brother Simon, a man generally detested, Archbishop of York, and thus had given Innocent good reason for again interfering. He was placed under sentence of suspension; the barons, beginning with Fitzwalter, were excommunicated as rebels against a Church vassal and Crusader, and termed as wicked as Saracens; and the city of London was laid under an interdict.
The Londoners boldly declared that the Pope had no power to meddle in their case, kept their churches open, and celebrated their Christmas as usual; but beyond their walls it was less easy to be secure.
John now had two great armies of foreigners, and had been joined by several of the barons' party; and he marched with one of them for the North, where young King Alexander of Scotland had laid siege to Norham, and had received the homage of the neighboring nobility.
As John advanced, the barons burnt their houses and corn before him, while he and his marauders ruined all they approached; he every morning, with his own hands, set fire to his night's lodgings, and in eight days five principal towns were consumed, and the course of his army was like the bed of a torrent.
Vowing he would unkennel the young fox, as he called Alexander, on account of his red hair, John sent his troops into Scotland, where they laid the whole country waste up to Edinburgh, and then, returning, reduced the castles and ravaged the lands of the barons in Yorkshire, and the same dreadful atrocities were perpetrated by his other army in the south of England, till the country people called the free-companions by no other name than Satan's Guards, and the Devil's Servants.
The barons had no stronghold left them but London, and saw their rank, their families, and estates, at the mercy of the remorseless tyrant and his savage banditti, backed by the support of their spiritual superiors. In this condition they deemed all ties between them and their sovereign dissolved, and, as their last resource, resolved to offer the crown to Louis, the son of Philippe Auguste, and the husband of Blanche of Castile, the marriage made to separate France from the cause of Arthur. It was a step which even their extremity could not justify, passing over, as it did, the rights of the captive Pearl of Brittany, of John's own innocent children, and of those of his eldest sister. But men have seldom been harder pressed than were these barons; and they were further tempted by the hope that all the mercenaries who were French subjects might be detached from the enemy by seeing their own prince's standard unfurled against him.
Saher de Quincy, Earl of Winchester, and Robert Fitzwalter, were deputed to carry letters to Prince Louis, who was then at war with the Albigenses of Languedoc. The wary old King Philippe dissembled his joy at the promised triumph over the hated Plantagenet, and at first declared that he could not trust his son's person in England, unless twenty-four nobles were first given up to him as hostages; but he permitted Louis to send a favorable reply to England, and the barons were so delighted at its reception, accompanied by a few French volunteers, that they held another tournament in its honor, but this was closed by the death of Geoffrey Mandeville, who was accidentally killed by the lance of a Frenchman.
Innocent was much incensed at the enterprise of the French prince, forgetting that he had already shown him the way to England. He sent his legate, Gualo, with letters to forbid Philippe's interference with a fief of the Holy See, and these were laid before the court in full council. Philippe, who always tried to have the law apparently on his side, began by saying he was the devoted subject of the Pope, and it was by no counsel or advice of his that his son disobeyed the court of Rome; but as he declared that he had some rights to the English crown, it was fair to hear him.
A knight then arose, and declared that John had been attainted and condemned by Philippe's own court on account of Arthur's murder; that he had since given his crown away without the consent of his barons; and as no sovereign had any such right, the throne was vacant by his own act, and his barons had full power to elect, and Louis to accept.
The legate declared John to be a Crusader, and therefore under the Church's peace for four years. He was answered, that John had himself violated that peace; and then Louis, rising, and turning to his father, said, "Sir, if I am your liegeman for the lands you have given me here, you have no right to England, which is offered to me: you can decree nothing on that head. I appeal to the judgment of my peers, whether I ought to follow your commands or my rights. I beg you not to hinder my designs, for my cause is just, and I will fight to the death for my wife's inheritance." Then, red with anger, Louis the Lion left the assembly, while the legate asked the King for a safe-conduct to England; and Philippe replied, that on the French territory he was safe enough; but if, on the coast, he fell into the hands of _King_ Louis's men, he could not be responsible for his safety.
Gualo, however, came safely to England, and joined John at Dover, where he promised him the succor of the Church; and Innocent, as an earnest, excommunicated Louis, and preached to his cardinals on Ezekiel xxi. 28: "The sword, the sword is drawn." But this was one of the last public acts of his life; he died at Perugia on the 8th of July, 1216, without having been able to send any support to his obedient vassal.
Meanwhile, Louis collected a great force, and embarked with it in 680 vessels, under the command of Eustace the Monk, a recreant who had become a pirate, and was reckoned the best mariner of his time. John fled from Dover, leaving it to
the trusty and loyal Hubert de Burgh, while Louis disembarked at Sandwich, and was received by the barons, who were charmed with his chivalrous and affable demeanor. They conducted him to London, where, in St. Paul's, he received their homage, and made oath to govern them by good laws, after which he appointed Simon Langton his chancellor. Nearly the whole country gave in their adhesion, Alexander of Scotland paid him homage, the North rose in his favor, and the chief strongholds that remained to John were Windsor Castle; Corfe, where, under the care of his wicked follower, Pierre de Maulae, were his queen and little children; and Dover, gallantly defended by Hubert de Burgh.
Nearly four months were spent by Louis in a vain attempt to take this place; his supplies were cut off by the sailors of the Cinque Ports, who were in John's interest; and though Louis's father sent him a battering machine, called Malvoisine, or "Bad Neighbor," he could make no impression on the walls. Meantime, the estates of the barons were devastated by John and his free-companions; and if ever the French prince retook any of the castles, he retained them in his own hands, or gave them to his French followers, instead of restoring them to their owners. They began to suspect that they were in evil case, more especially when the Vicomte de Melun, being suddenly seized by a mortal sickness, sent for all the nobles then in London, and thus spoke: "I grieve for your fate. I, with the prince and fifteen others, have sworn an oath, that, when the realm is his, ye shall all be beggared, or exterminated as traitors whom he can never trust. Look to yourselves!"
Suspicion thus excited, William Longsword and several other barons returned to their allegiance, and forty more offered to do the same on the promise of pardon. Louis was forced to raise the siege of Dover, and John's prospects improved; he took Lincoln, and marched to Lynn, whence he wont to Wisbech, intending to proceed by the Wash from Cross-keys to Foss-dyke, across the sands-a safe passage at low water, but covered suddenly by the tide, which there forms a considerable eddy on meeting the current of the Welland.
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