Part 3 (2/2)
We must now lay greater weight than is commonly done on the incidents that occurred during King Richard's absence. He had entrusted the administration of the realm to a man of low origin, William, bishop of Ely, who carried it on with great energy, and not without the pomp and splendour, which grace authority, but arouse jealousy. Hence lay and spiritual chiefs combined against him: with Earl John, the brother of the absent King, at their head, they banished the hated bishop by the strong hand, and of their own authority set another in his place. The city of London, which had been already allowed the election of its own magistrates by Henry II, had then formed a so-called _Communia_ after the pattern of the Flemish and North French towns; bishops, earls, and barons, swore to support the city in it.[28]
These first attempts at an opposition by the estates obtained fresh weight when on Richard's death a contest again arose about the succession. Earl John claimed it for himself, but Arthur, an elder brother's son, seemed to have a better right, and had been moreover recognised at once in the South French provinces. The English n.o.bles fortified their castles, and for some time a.s.sumed an almost threatening position; they only acknowledged John on the a.s.surance that each and all should have their rights.[29] John's possession of the crown was therefore derived not merely from right of inheritance, but also from their election.
A strong territorial confederacy had thus gradually grown up, confronting the royal power with a claim to independent rights; events now happened that roused it into full life.
King John incurred the suspicion of having murdered Arthur, who had fallen into his hands, to rid himself of his claims; he was accused of it by the peers of France, and p.r.o.nounced guilty; on which the Plantagenet provinces which were fiefs of the French crown went over to the King of France at the first attack. The English n.o.bility would at least not fight for a sovereign on whom such a heinous suspicion lay: on another pretence it abandoned him.
But then broke out a new quarrel with the Church. The most powerful pontiff that ever sat in the Roman See, Innocent III, thought good to decide a disputed election at Canterbury by pa.s.sing over both candidates, including the King's, and caused the election of, or rather himself named, one of his friends from the great school at Paris, Stephen Langton. As King John did not acknowledge him, Innocent laid England under an Interdict.
Alike careless and cruel, naturally hasty and untrustworthy, of doubtful birthright, and now rejected by the Church, John must have rather expected resistance than support from the great men of the realm. He tried to a.s.sure himself of those he suspected by taking hostages from their families; he confiscated the property of the ecclesiastics who complied with the Pope's orders, and took it under his own management; he employed every means which the still unlimited extent of the supreme authority allowed, to obtain money and men; powerfully and successfully he used the sword. But in the long run he could not maintain himself by these means. When a revolt broke out in Wales at the open instigation of the Pope, and the King's va.s.sals were summoned to put it down, even among them a general discontent was perceptible; John had reason to dread that if he came near the enemy with such an army he might be delivered into their hands or killed: he did not venture to carry out the campaign. And meanwhile he saw himself threatened from abroad also. King Philip Augustus of France armed, to attack his old opponent at home (whom he had already driven from in those provinces over which he himself was feudal sovereign), and to carry out the Pope's excommunication against him. He boasted, probably with good grounds, of having the English barons' letters and seals, promising that they would join him. He would have restored all the fugitives and exiles; the Church element would have raised itself all the more strongly, in proportion to its previous depression; a general revolt would have accompanied his attack, the English government according to all appearance would have been lost.
King John knew this well: to avoid immediate ruin he seized on a means of escape which was completely unexpected, but quite decisive--he gave over his kingdom in va.s.salage to the Pope.
What William I had so expressly rejected was now accepted in a moment of extreme pressure, from which such a step was the only means of escape. The moment the Pope was recognised as feudal lord of England, not only must his hostility cease, but he would be bound to take the realm under his protection. He now forbade the King of France, whom he had before urged on to its conquest, to carry out the invasion, which was already prepared.
It appears as if the barons had originally agreed with the King's proceeding, although they did not entirely approve its form. They maintained that they had risen up for the Church's rights,[30] and saw in the Pope a natural ally. They thought to gain their own purpose all the more surely now that Stephen Langton received the see of Canterbury, a man who, while he represented the Papal authority, at the same time zealously made their interests his own. At the very moment when the archbishop absolved the King from the excommunication, he made him swear that he would restore the good laws, especially those of King Edward, and would do all according to the legal decisions of his courts. It may be regarded as the first time that a Norman-Plantagenet king's administration was acted on by an obligatory engagement, when King John, on the point of taking the field against some barons whom he regarded as rebels, was hindered by the archbishop who reminded him that he would thus be breaking his last oath, which bound him to take judicial proceedings. The tradition that a forgotten charter of Henry I was produced by the archbishop (who was certainly, as his writings show, a scholar of research), and recognised as a legal doc.u.ment which gave them a firm footing, may admit of some doubt; there is no doubt that it was Stephen Langton who gathered around him the great n.o.bles and bound them by a mutual engagement, to defend, even at the risk of life, the old liberties and rights which they derived from Anglo-Saxon times.
It was, in fact, of considerable importance that the primate, on whose co-operation with the King the Norman state originally rested, united himself in this matter as closely as possible with the n.o.bles; among all alike, without regard to their origin, whether from France or from England, had arisen the wish to limit the crown, as it had been limited in the Anglo-Saxon period.
Here, however, they had to discover that the Pope was minded to protect the King, his va.s.sal, not only against attacks from abroad, but also against movements at home. The engagements which the barons had formed, when he released them from their oath of fidelity to the King, he now declared to be invalid and void. The legate in England reported unfavourably on their proceedings, and it was seen that he was intimately allied with the King. The war was still raging on the continent, and the King had been again defeated, at Bouvines, July 27, 1214; he had returned disheartened, but not without bodies of mercenaries, both horse and foot, which excited anxiety in the allied n.o.bles. This feeling was strengthened by the fact that, after the death of a chancellor connected with them by family, and on good terms with them, he raised a foreigner, Peter des Roches, to that dignity, and it was believed that this foreigner would lend a hand to any attempt at restoring the previous state of things. Acts of violence of the old sort, and the King's l.u.s.ts, which brought dishonour into their families, added to their indignation. In short, the barons, far from breaking up their alliance, confirmed it with new oaths. While they pressed the King to accept the demands which they laid before him, they sent one of the chief of their number, Eustace de Vescy, to Rome, to win the Pope to their cause, by reminding him of the grat.i.tude due to them for their services in the cause of the Church. As lord of England, for they did not hesitate to designate him as such, he might admonish King John, and, if necessary, force him to restore unimpaired the old rights guaranteed them by the charters of earlier Kings.[31]
But not so did Innocent understand his right of supreme lords.h.i.+p in England; he did not side with those who had helped to win the victory for him over the King, but with the King himself, to whose sudden decision he owed its fruits--the acknowledgment of his feudal superiority. He blamed the archbishop for concealing the movements of the barons from him, and for having, perhaps, even encouraged them, though knowing their pernicious nature: with what view was he stirring questions of which no mention had been made either under the King's father or brother? He censured the barons for refusing the scutage, which had been paid from old times, and for their threat of proceeding sword in hand. He repeated his command to them to break up their confederacy, under threat of excommunication.
As one step lower the primate and n.o.bles, so in the highest sphere Innocent and John were in alliance. The Papacy, then in possession of supremacy over the world, made common cause with royalty. Would not the n.o.bles, some from reverence for the supreme Pontiff's authority, others from a sense of religious obligation, yield to this alliance?
Such was not their intention.[32]
The King proffered the barons an arbitration, the umpire to be the Pope, or else an absolute reference of the whole matter to him, who then by his apostolic power could settle what was right and lawful.
They could not possibly accept either the one or the other, after the known declarations of the Pope. As they persevered in their hostile att.i.tude, the King called on the archbishop to carry out the instructions of a Papal brief, and p.r.o.nounce the barons excommunicated. Stephen Langton answered that he knew better what was the true intention of the holy father. The Pope's name this time remained quite powerless. Rather it was preached in London that the highest spiritual power should not encroach on temporal affairs; Peter, in the significant phrase of the time, could not be Constantine as well.[33] Only among the lower citizens was there a party favourable to the King, but they were put down at a blow by the great barons and the rich citizens. The capital threw its whole weight on the side of the barons. They rose in arms and formally renounced their allegiance to the King; they proclaimed war against him under the name of 'the army of G.o.d.' Thus confronted by the whole kingdom, in which there appeared to be only one opinion, the King had no means of resistance remaining, no choice left.
He came down--15th June, 1215--from Windsor to the meadow at Runnymede, where the barons lay encamped, and signed the articles laid before him, happy enough in getting some of them softened. The Great Charter came into being, truly the 'Magna Charta,' which throws not merely all earlier, but also the later charters into the shade.
It is a doc.u.ment which, more than any other, links together the different epochs of English history. With a renewal of the earliest maxims of German personal freedom it combines a settlement of the rights of the feudal Estates: on this twofold basis has the proud edifice of the English const.i.tution been erected. Before all things the lay n.o.bles sought to secure themselves against the misuse of the King's authority in his feudal capacity, and as bound up with the supreme jurisdiction; but the rights of the Church and of the towns were also guaranteed. It was especially by forced collections of extraordinary aids that King John had hara.s.sed his Estates: since they could no longer put up with this, and yet the crown could not dispense with extraordinary resources, a solution was found by requiring that such aids should not be levied except with the consent of the Great Council, which consisted of the lords spiritual and temporal. They tried to set limits to the arbitrary imprisonments that had been hitherto the order of the day, by definite reference to the law of the land and the verdict of sworn men. But these are just the weightiest points on which personal freedom and security of property rest; and how to combine them with a strong government forms the leading problem for all national const.i.tutions.
Two other points in this doc.u.ment deserve notice. In other countries also at this epoch emperors and kings made very comprehensive concessions to the several Estates: the distinctive point in the case of England is, that they were not made to each Estate separately, but to all at the same time. While elsewhere each Estate was caring for itself, here a common interest of all grew up, which bound them together for ever. Further, the Charter was introduced in conscious opposition to the supreme spiritual power also; the principles which lay at the very root of popular freedom breathed an anti-Romish spirit.
Yet it was far from possible to regard them as being fully established. There were also conditions contained in the Charter, by which the legal and indispensable powers of the King's government were impaired: the barons even formed a controlling power as against the King. It could not be expected that King John, or any of his successors, would let this pa.s.s quietly. And besides, was not the Pope able to do away with the obligation of which he disapproved? We still possess the first draft of the Charter, which presents considerable variations from the doc.u.ment in its final form, among others the following. According to the draft the King was to give an a.s.surance that he would never obtain from the Pope a revocation of the arrangements agreed on; the archbishop, the bishops, and the Papal plenipotentiary, Master Pandulph, were to guarantee this a.s.surance. We see to what quarter the anxieties of the n.o.bles pointed, how they wished above all to obtain security against the influences of the Papal See. Yet this they were not able to obtain. There was no mention in the doc.u.ment either of the bishops or of Master Pandulph; the King promised in general, not to obtain such a revocation from any one; they avoided naming the Pope.[34]
In reality it made no difference, whatever might be promised or done in this respect. Innocent III was not the man to accept quietly what had taken place against his declared will, or to yield to accomplished facts. On the authority of the words 'I have set thee over the nations and over the kingdoms,' which seemed to him a sufficient basis for his Paramount Right, he gave sentence rejecting the whole contents of the Charter; he suspended Stephen Langton, excommunicated the barons and the citizens of London, as the true authors of this perverse act, and forbade the King under pain of excommunication to observe the Charter which he had put forth.
And even without this King John had already armed, to annul by force of arms all that he had promised. A war broke out which took a turn especially dangerous to the kingdom, because the barons called the heir of France to the English throne and did him homage. So little were the feelings of nationality yet developed, that the barons fought out the war against their King, supported by the presence and military Power of a foreign prince. For the interests of the English crown it was perhaps an advantage that King John died in the midst of the troubles, and his rights pa.s.sed to his son Henry, a child to whom his father's iniquity could not be imputed.[35] In his name a royalist party was formed by the joint action of Pembroke, the Marshal of the kingdom and the Papal Legate, which at last won such advantages in the field, that the French prince was induced to surrender his claim, which he himself hardly held to be a good one--the English were designated as traitors by his retinue,--and give back to the barons the homage they had pledged him. But he did so only on the condition that not merely their possessions, but also the lawful customs and liberties of the realm should be secured to them.[36] At a meeting between Henry III and the French prince at Merton in Surrey, it was agreed to give Magna Charta a form, in which it was deemed compatible with the monarchy. In this shape the article on personal freedom occurs; on the other hand everything is left out that could imply a power of control to be exercised against the King; the need of a grant before levying scutage is also no longer mentioned. The barons abandoned for the time their chief claims.
It is, properly speaking, this charter which was renewed in the ninth year of Henry III as Magna Charta, and was afterwards repeatedly confirmed. As we see, it did not include the right of approving taxes by a vote.
Whether men's union in a State in general depends on an original contract, is a question for political theorists, and to them we leave its solution. On the other hand, however, it might well be maintained that the English const.i.tution, as it gradually shaped itself, a.s.sumed the character of a contract. So much is already involved in the first promises which William the Conqueror made at his entry into London and in his agreement with the partisans of Harold. The same is true of the a.s.surances given by his sons, especially the second one: they were the price of a very definite equivalent. More than any that had gone before however does Magna Charta bear this character. The barons put forward their demands: King John negociates about them, and at last sees himself forced to accept them. It is true that he soon takes arms to free himself from the obligation he has undertaken. It comes to a struggle, in which, however, neither side decidedly gains the upper hand, and they agree to a compromise. It is true the barons did not expressly stipulate for the new charter when they submitted to John's son (for with John himself they could certainly have never been reconciled), but yet it is undeniable that without it their submission would never have taken place, nor would peace have been concluded.
As, however, is generally the case, the agreement had in it the germs of a further quarrel. The one side did not forget what it had lost, the other what it had aimed at and failed to attain. Magna Charta does not contain a final settlement, by which the sovereign's claims to obedience were reconciled with the security of the va.s.sals; it is less a contract that has attained to full validity, than the outline of a contract, to fill up which would yet require the struggles of centuries.
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