condition of society lasted more than six years. During this period, John appears to have conducted himself with more vigour and decision than at any other part of his reign. He compromised a difference with the king of Scotland, without any actual warfare. He led a great army into Ireland, which had been distracted by the rivalries and oppressions of the proud barons who had been deputed to its administration since the time of Henry II. The presence of the English king, with a powerful force, was held as a blessing by the native chiefs and the body of the people. Ireland was, before the visit of John, a prey to those lawless outrages which are invariably the result of tyrannous government. Dublin was peopled in a great degree, by colonists from Bristol, under a grant from Henry II. John originated some useful reforms. He divided the portions of the kingdom in his possession into shires, each with its sheriff and other officers, and he coined the first sterling money circulated in Ireland. He left John de Gray, bishop of Norwich, as his chief justiciary, a man of talent and discretion. During the troublous future of England in this reign the sister island was tranquil and prosperous.

The expedition to Ireland was followed next year, 1211, by an attempt to repress the incursions of the Welsh. John advanced to the foot of Snowdon, and there received twenty-eight young men as hostages, from Llewellyn. During these warlike operations in Ireland and Wales, the interdict had been followed by a sentence of excommunication against John personally. By the most vigorous watchfulness of the ports its publication was prevented. The marches of the king to Scotland and Ireland and Wales were, doubtless, intended to give occupation to discontented nobles and dangerous men-at-arms. But they were costly. The Jews were, as usual, plundered without scruple. What the Jews could not supply was taken from the churches. For four years the pope persevered in the interdict. During this period the private activity of the clergy stimulated the people against the secular power; and they became slowly and silently alienated from the king. In 1213, Innocent proceeded to act upon the formal excommunication which he had previously issued, by deposing the king of England, absolving his vassals from their fealty, exhorting all Christian princes and barons to unite in dethroning him, and excommunicating those who held any intercourse with him. By this excommunication all the ordinary operations of law were suspended. There was impunity for crime. There was no safety for property. Two legates, Pandulph and Durand, had come into England, in 1212, and proclaimed this deposition of the king before a great assembly at Northampton. In another year the sentence was pronounced, and Innocent found a willing instrument to enforce his sublime pretensions to be the sovereign of sovereigns. He promised to grant Philip of France the kingdom; and Philip assembled a great army at Rouen, and an armament of seventeen hundred ships in the Channel, for the invasion of England. John, to do him jus tice, was not inactive. He issued orders that every ship in his dominions, capable of the freight of six horses, should assemble at Portsmouth; and every man that could bear arms was summoned to the coast of Kent. Instead of waiting for Philip, this fleet crossed the Channel, destroyed many ships at Fecamp, and burned Dieppe. The invasion was postponed by

A.D. 1213. KING JOHN SUBMITS TO THE POPE.

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this well-timed boldness. But while John awaited at Dover the result of the expedition to the shores of Normandy, the legate Pandulph again arrived. John was now terrified by imaginary dangers as well as real ones. A fanatic called Peter had prophesied that before Ascension-day John would cease to reign. That feast of the Ascension fell on the 16th of May. To avert this danger, he hurriedly submitted to the legate. On the 13th of May he subscribed an instrument by which he promised to obey the pope, in the admission of Stephen Langton to the archbishopric; to recall the exiled bishops, and others who had taken part against him; to reverse outlawries; to make restitution for property unlawfully seized. These conditions being fulfilled, the interdict and excommunication were to be revoked. Four of the most powerful barons guaranteed these stipulations on the part of John. The next day was spent in secret council with the legate. On the 15th of May the English king took an oath of fealty to the pope as his vassal. He put an instrument into the hands of the legate, subscribed by himself, nine earls, and two barons, by which he granted to Pope Innocent and his successors the kingdom of England and Ireland, to be held of him and of the Roman church in fee, by the annual rent of one thousand marks, reserving to himself and his heirs the administration of justice and the peculiar rights of the crown. Ascension-day came, and John hanged Peter as a false prophet. The people said that he was a true prophet, for that John had ceased to reign in doing fealty to the pope.

Upon the absolute submission of John to the papal authority, it was notified to Philip of France that the king of England had been received as a repentant son of the church, and that no attempt must be made upon his dominions. In this disappointment of his ambition Philip unwillingly acquiesced; and proposed to invade England unsupported by any papal encouragement. Ferrand, earl of Flanders, who held this earldom as a vassal of France, refused his consent to join in the invasion; and a war ensued. Ferrand invaded France, and John sent assistance to him from England, in a powerful fleet. There was a signal victory, in which English ships, loaded with armed men, captured and burnt a French fleet. The scene was Damme, near Bruges. But this partial success was converted into an evil by the misjudging king, who, in his elation of spirit, imperiously called upon his barons to follow him to war in France. They came at his bidding to Portsmouth with their armed retainers; but they refused to embark till he had recalled the exiled prelates and laity as he had covenanted. He at length complied. Stephen Langton now came to take possession of his see, and with him the churchmen who had fled the kingdom. Still the barons refused to sail with John. They said their term of feudal service was expired. They stayed behind, to deliberate upon the grievances of the kingdom, at a council at St. Alban's. They then issued a proclamation, in the royal name, commanding the laws of Henry I. to be observed. When the king found that the barons had not followed him to Jersey, where he waited, he returned in fierce indignation, determined to punish those whom he denounced as traitors. Langton met him, and told him the honest truth, that it was not for a king to punish any man without trial, and that the barons were ready to answer in the King's

G

A.D. 1214. Court. The patriotic archbishop convened another council at London, and here he produced what was called the charter of Henry I.-a code of ancient Saxon laws with Norman additions. All those of the council then took an oath to maintain their liberties.

In 1214, John landed at Rochelle, and obtained some advantages in Poitou. In the meantime France was invaded by troops under the emperor of Germany, the earl of Flanders, the earl of Boulogne; and by English under the earl of Salisbury. Philip met these combined forces, amounting to a hundred and fifty thousand men, with half the number of the chivalry of France. On the 27th of July a great battle was fought at Bouvines, a village between Lille and Tournay. Its result was the utter rout of the allied armies, and the overthrow of the hopes of John. He concluded an ignominious truce with Philip, and returned to England in October, bringing in his train a large body of foreign mercenaries.

There were now two eminent persons, amongst many other bold and earnest churchmen and laity, who saw that the time was come when a king should rule in England by law instead of by force, or rule not at all. Stephen Langton, the archbishop, and William, earl of Pembroke, were the leaders and, at the same time, moderators in the greatest enterprise that the nation had yet undertaken. On the 20th of November, the barons held a solemn meeting, and, upon the altar at St. Edmundsbury, swore to withdraw their allegiance from John, if he should resist their claims to just government. From St. Edmundsbury the barons marched to London, where the king had shut himself up in the Temple. When their deputies came into his presence, he first despised their claims, and then asked for delay. The archbishop of Canterbury, the earl of Pembroke, and the bishop of Ely, guaranteed that a satisfactory answer should be given before Easter. During the king's absence from England, the pope's interdict had been rescinded. John now endeavoured to propitiate the Church, by promising a free election of bishops. He took the Cross and engaged to wage war with the infidels. He sent to Rome, to implore the aid of the pope in his quarrel. Innocent commanded Langton to exercise his authority to bring back the king's vassals to their allegiance. At Easter, the barons, with a large force, assembled at Stamford. John was at Oxford. He sent Langton and Pembroke to ascertain the demands of their peers. They brought back the written articles which the king signed at Runnymede. As the archbishop solemnly repeated these demands, John went into a furious passion, and declared that, he would never grant liberties which would make himself a slave. The archbishop and the earl took back his refusal. "The army of God and holy Church," as the barons proclaimed themselves, then advanced upon London, which they entered on the 22nd of May. The citizens had previously agreed to make common cause with them. On the 10th of June, John was at Windsor, which was his abidingplace for a fortnight. On Monday the 15th of June he went from the adjacent castle to Runnymede. The time and place of meeting were by solemn appointment.. The great business of the assembly was accomplished on that day; but John was at Runnymede on six subsequent days, between the 15th and 23rd of June.

A.D. 1215.

MAGNA CHARTA.

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Magna Charta, the Great Charter of Liberties, was a code of laws, expressed in simple language, embodying two principles :-the first, such limitations of the feudal claims of the king as would prevent their abuse; the second, such specification of the general rights of all freemen as were derived from the ancient laws of the realm, however these rights had been neglected or perverted. It defined, in broad terms of practical application, the essential difference between a limited and a despotic monarchy. It preserved all the proper attributes of the kingly power, whilst it guarded against the king being a tyrant. Life, liberty, and property were protected. No man, from that time, could be detained in prison without trial. No man would have to buy justice. The Charter recognised the Court of Common Pleas, and the circuits of judges of assize, which had been before established. But it put an end to that enormous corruption by which justice was sold, not by mere personal bribery of corrupt ministers of the crown, but by bribing the crown through their hands. The Great Charter, in these broad provisions, applied only to freemen. One sole piece of consideration for the villan occurs upon the subject of amerciament, or fines to the king: "And a villan shall be amerced after the same manner, saving to him his wainage, if he falls under our mercy." The expression, "salvo wainagio suo," saves to the villan his implements of husbandry—his carts and ploughs. The specific provisions of the Great Charter went to the remedy of existing evils as they presented themselves in the existing state of society. It was not a revolution. It was a conservative reform. "From this era a new soul was infused into the people of England."*

Twenty-five barons were chosen by the barons assembled at Runnymede to maintain the observance of the peace and liberties granted and confirmed; so that, if the king or his officers violated any of the conditions, four out of the twenty-five barons so chosen might petition for redress of the grievance, and if not redressed within forty days, the cause being laid before the rest of the twenty-five, they might levy war upon the king.

At the end of August, John was at Sandwich, and through September at Dover and Canterbury. Gradually numerous bodies of freebooters, from Poitou, from Gascony, from Flanders, from Brabant, landed in the country, and gathered around the king at Dover. Rochester Castle was in the hands of the barons; and John arrived with his army to besiege it. After a siege of eight weeks, it was reduced by famine. The king, with his accustomed ferocity, was about to hang the whole garrison, but was contented with a partial butchery. John had one great ally-the pope. A bull was issued, excommunicating the barons, and annulling the Charter. Stephen Langton, the archbishop, refused to excommunicate the disobedient barons, and was, of course, suspended from his functions. The country was overrun by the king's fierce mercenaries. John marched to the north with a determination to recover his authority by the terrors of a wide-spreading desolation; and entered Scotland, in revenge for the alliance which its king, Alexander II., had formed with the barons. In the south the same work of terror went forward, under the command of

Hallam, "Middle Ages."

John's illegitimate brother, the earl of Salisbury. The barons, despairing of their cause, came at last to a desperate resolution. They offered the crown to Louis, the eldest son of the king of France. It was a dangerous experiment; but it was surrounded by as many safeguards as could reasonably be attempted. Louis advanced some pretensions to a title to the English crown, in the right of his wife, Blanche, the niece of John. The pope excommunicated Louis and his supporters. But the young prince was not willing to give up the prize which had been presented to his ambition. John was at Dover with his mercenaries in great force, in May, 1216. As the French fleet appeared in sight, he commenced a retreat upon Winchester, ravaging the country after his usual custom. On the 30th, Louis landed at Sandwich, reduced Rochester, and marched upon London, where he was received in solemn procession, and was paid the homage of the barons and the citizens, he swearing to govern justly, to defend them against their enemies, and to restore them to their rights and possessions. There can be no doubt that Louis was the object of popular enthusiasm. His career was for some time a triumph. But he soon lost the confidence of those who had placed the kingdom at his feet. He began to dispense honours and possessions to his own countrymen. There was disunion in the camp of the confederates. The king's character, however, was a tower of strength to his enemies. Even at this time of difficulty, by new outrages he had driven his own brother, Salisbury, to the camp of his assailants.

On the 12th of October John had marched to Wisbeach. He resolved to cross the Wash. The tide was flowing in. The river Welland was descending in a strong current. Part of the army had securely crossed; but at a spot still known as King's Corner, between Cross Keys Wash and Lynn, the king's baggage-waggons, his sumpter horses-all the movables of a royal army-were swallowed up by the waters, and John stood, on the northern shore of the Wash, helpless and despairing. He proceeded, the same night, to the Cistercian abbey of Swineshead. Fatigue and anguish of mind brought on a fever. On the 15th he mounted his horse to continue his march; but was obliged to be placed in a litter, and was borne to Sleaford. The next day he was carried to the castle of Newark; and he there died on the 18th of October.

CHAPTER VII.

JOHN's eldest son, Henry, was ten years of age at the time of his father's death. The form of coronation was hastily gone through at Gloucester, on the 28th of October. A fillet of gold was placed on the child's head, for the crown had been lost in the fatal crossing of the Wash. Gualo, the pope's legate, performed this office. The usual oaths were administered, and homage to the pope was exacted. Three English bishops stood around,