obliged to receive them, they told him roundly they would not
believe him unless Stephen Langton became a surety that he would
keep his word. When he took the Cross to invest himself with some
interest, and belong to something that was received with favour,
Stephen Langton was still immovable. When he appealed to the Pope,
and the Pope wrote to Stephen Langton in behalf of his new
favourite, Stephen Langton was deaf, even to the Pope himself, and
saw before him nothing but the welfare of England and the crimes of
the English King.
At Easter-time, the Barons assembled at Stamford, in Lincolnshire,
in proud array, and, marching near to Oxford where the King was,
delivered into the hands of Stephen Langton and two others, a list
of grievances. 'And these,' they said, 'he must redress, or we
will do it for ourselves!' When Stephen Langton told the King as
much, and read the list to him, he went half mad with rage. But
that did him no more good than his afterwards trying to pacify the
Barons with lies. They called themselves and their followers, 'The
army of God and the Holy Church.' Marching through the country,
with the people thronging to them everywhere (except at
Northampton, where they failed in an attack upon the castle), they
at last triumphantly set up their banner in London itself, whither
the whole land, tired of the tyrant, seemed to flock to join them.
Seven knights alone, of all the knights in England, remained with
the King; who, reduced to this strait, at last sent the Earl of
Pembroke to the Barons to say that he approved of everything, and
would meet them to sign their charter when they would. 'Then,'
said the Barons, 'let the day be the fifteenth of June, and the
place, Runny-Mead.'
On Monday, the fifteenth of June, one thousand two hundred and
fourteen, the King came from Windsor Castle, and the Barons came
from the town of Staines, and they met on Runny-Mead, which is
still a pleasant meadow by the Thames, where rushes grow in the
clear water of the winding river, and its banks are green with
grass and trees. On the side of the Barons, came the General of
their army, ROBERT FITZ-WALTER, and a great concourse of the
nobility of England. With the King, came, in all, some four-andtwenty
persons of any note, most of whom despised him, and were
merely his advisers in form. On that great day, and in that great
company, the King signed MAGNA CHARTA - the great charter of
England - by which he pledged himself to maintain the Church in its
rights; to relieve the Barons of oppressive obligations as vassals
of the Crown - of which the Barons, in their turn, pledged
themselves to relieve THEIR vassals, the people; to respect the
liberties of London and all other cities and boroughs; to protect
foreign merchants who came to England; to imprison no man without a
fair trial; and to sell, delay, or deny justice to none. As the
Barons knew his falsehood well, they further required, as their
securities, that he should send out of his kingdom all his foreign
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troops; that for two months they should hold possession of the city
of London, and Stephen Langton of the Tower; and that five-andtwenty
of their body, chosen by themselves, should be a lawful
committee to watch the keeping of the charter, and to make war upon
him if he broke it.
All this he was obliged to yield. He signed the charter with a
smile, and, if he could have looked agreeable, would have done so,
as he departed from the splendid assembly. When he got home to
Windsor Castle, he was quite a madman in his helpless fury. And he
broke the charter immediately afterwards.
He sent abroad for foreign soldiers, and sent to the Pope for help,
and plotted to take London by surprise, while the Barons should be
holding a great tournament at Stamford, which they had agreed to
hold there as a celebration of the charter. The Barons, however,
found him out and put it off. Then, when the Barons desired to see
him and tax him with his treachery, he made numbers of appointments
constantly sneaking and skulking about. At last he appeared at
Dover, to join his foreign soldiers, of whom numbers came into his
pay; and with them he besieged and took Rochester Castle, which was
occupied by knights and soldiers of the Barons. He would have
hanged them every one; but the leader of the foreign soldiers,
fearful of what the English people might afterwards do to him,
interfered to save the knights; therefore the King was fain to
satisfy his vengeance with the death of all the common men. Then,
he sent the Earl of Salisbury, with one portion of his army, to
ravage the eastern part of his own dominions, while he carried fire
and slaughter into the northern part; torturing, plundering,
killing, and inflicting every possible cruelty upon the people;
and, every morning, setting a worthy example to his men by setting
fire, with his own monster-hands, to the house where he had slept
last night. Nor was this all; for the Pope, coming to the aid of
his precious friend, laid the kingdom under an Interdict again,
because the people took part with the Barons. It did not much
matter, for the people had grown so used to it now, that they had
begun to think nothing about it. It occurred to them - perhaps to
Stephen Langton too - that they could keep their churches open, and
ring their bells, without the Pope's permission as well as with it.
So, they tried the experiment - and found that it succeeded
perfectly.
It being now impossible to bear the country, as a wilderness of
cruelty, or longer to hold any terms with such a forsworn outlaw of
a King, the Barons sent to Louis, son of the French monarch, to
offer him the English crown. Caring as little for the Pope's
excommunication of him if he accepted the offer, as it is possible
his father may have cared for the Pope's forgiveness of his sins,
he landed at Sandwich (King John immediately running away from
Dover, where he happened to be), and went on to London. The
Scottish King, with whom many of the Northern English Lords had
taken refuge; numbers of the foreign soldiers, numbers of the
Barons, and numbers of the people went over to him every day; -
King John, the while, continually running away in all directions.
The career of Louis was checked however, by the suspicions of the
Barons, founded on the dying declaration of a French Lord, that
when the kingdom was conquered he was sworn to banish them as
traitors, and to give their estates to some of his own Nobles.
Rather than suffer this, some of the Barons hesitated: others even
went over to King John.
It seemed to be the turning-point of King John's fortunes, for, in
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his savage and murderous course, he had now taken some towns and
; met with some successes. But, happily for England and humanity,
his death was near. Crossing a dangerous quicksand, called the
Wash, not very far from Wisbeach, the tide came up and nearly
drowned his army. He and his soldiers escaped; but, looking back
from the shore when he was safe, he saw the roaring water sweep
down in a torrent, overturn the waggons, horses, and men, that
carried his treasure, and engulf them in a raging whirlpool from
which nothing could be delivered.
Cursing, and swearing, and gnawing his fingers, he went on to
Swinestead Abbey, where the monks set before him quantities of
pears, and peaches, and new cider - some say poison too, but there
is very little reason to suppose so - of which he ate and drank in
an immoderate and beastly way. All night he lay ill of a burning
fever, and haunted with horrible fears. Next day, they put him in
a horse-litter, and carried him to Sleaford Castle, where he passed
another night of pain and horror. Next day, they carried him, with
greater difficulty than on the day before, to the castle of Newark
upon Trent; and there, on the eighteenth of October, in the fortyninth
year of his age, and the seventeenth of his vile reign, was
an end of this miserable brute.
CHAPTER XV - ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE THIRD, CALLED, OF WINCHESTER
IF any of the English Barons remembered the murdered Arthur's
sister, Eleanor the fair maid of Brittany, shut up in her convent
at Bristol, none among them spoke of her now, or maintained her
right to the Crown. The dead Usurper's eldest boy, HENRY by name,
was taken by the Earl of Pembroke, the Marshal of England, to the
city of Gloucester, and there crowned in great haste when he was
only ten years old. As the Crown itself had been lost with the
King's treasure in the raging water, and as there was no time to
make another, they put a circle of plain gold upon his head
instead. 'We have been the enemies of this child's father,' said
Lord Pembroke, a good and true gentleman, to the few Lords who were
present, 'and he merited our ill-will; but the child himself is
innocent, and his youth demands our friendship and protection.'
Those Lords felt tenderly towards the little boy, remembering their
own young children; and they bowed their heads, and said, 'Long
live King Henry the Third!'
Next, a great council met at Bristol, revised Magna Charta, and
made Lord Pembroke Regent or Protector of England, as the King was
too young to reign alone. The next thing to be done, was to get
rid of Prince Louis of France, and to win over those English Barons
who were still ranged under his banner. He was strong in many
parts of England, and in London itself; and he held, among other
places, a certain Castle called the Castle of Mount Sorel, in
Leicestershire. To this fortress, after some skirmishing and
truce-making, Lord Pembroke laid siege. Louis despatched an army
of six hundred knights and twenty thousand soldiers to relieve it.
Lord Pembroke, who was not strong enough for such a force, retired
with all his men. The army of the French Prince, which had marched
there with fire and plunder, marched away with fire and plunder,
and came, in a boastful swaggering manner, to Lincoln. The town
submitted; but the Castle in the town, held by a brave widow lady,
named NICHOLA DE CAMVILLE (whose property it was), made such a
sturdy resistance, that the French Count in command of the army of
the French Prince found it necessary to besiege this Castle. While
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he was thus engaged, word was brought to him that Lord Pembroke,
with four hundred knights, two hundred and fifty men with crossbows,
and a stout force both of horse and foot, was marching
towards him. 'What care I?' said the French Count. 'The
Englishman is not so mad as to attack me and my great army in a
walled town!' But the Englishman did it for all that, and did it -
not so madly but so wisely, that he decoyed the great army into the
narrow, ill-paved lanes and byways of Lincoln, where its horsesoldiers
could not ride in any strong body; and there he made such
havoc with them, that the whole force surrendered themselves
prisoners, except the Count; who said that he would never yield to
any English traitor alive, and accordingly got killed. The end of
this victory, which the English called, for a joke, the Fair of
Lincoln, was the usual one in those times - the common men were
slain without any mercy, and the knights and gentlemen paid ransom
and went home.
The wife of Louis, the fair BLANCHE OF CASTILE, dutifully equipped
a fleet of eighty good ships, and sent it over from France to her
husband's aid. An English fleet of forty ships, some good and some
bad, gallantly met them near the mouth of the Thames, and took or
sunk sixty-five in one fight. This great loss put an end to the
French Prince's hopes. A treaty was made at Lambeth, in virtue of
which the English Barons who had remained attached to his cause
returned to their allegiance, and it was engaged on both sides that
the Prince and all his troops should retire peacefully to France.
It was time to go; for war had made him so poor that he was obliged
to borrow money from the citizens of London to pay his expenses
home.
Lord Pembroke afterwards applied himself to governing the country
justly, and to healing the quarrels and disturbances that had
arisen among men in the days of the bad King John. He caused Magna
Charta to be still more improved, and so amended the Forest Laws
that a Peasant was no longer put to death for killing a stag in a
Royal Forest, but was only imprisoned. It would have been well for
England if it could have had so good a Protector many years longer,
but that was not to be. Within three years after the young King's
Coronation, Lord Pembroke died; and you may see his tomb, at this
day, in the old Temple Church in London.
The Protectorship was now divided. PETER DE ROCHES, whom King John
had made Bishop of Winchester, was entrusted with the care of the
person of the young sovereign; and the exercise of the Royal
authority was confided to EARL HUBERT DE BURGH. These two
personages had from the first no liking for each other, and soon
became enemies. When the young King was declared of age, Peter de
Roches, finding that Hubert increased in power and favour, retired
discontentedly, and went abroad. For nearly ten years afterwards
Hubert had full sway alone.
But ten years is a long time to hold the favour of a King. This
King, too, as he grew up, showed a strong resemblance to his
father, in feebleness, inconsistency, and irresolution. The best
that can be said of him is that he was not cruel. De Roches coming
home again, after ten years, and being a novelty, the King began to
favour him and to look coldly on Hubert. Wanting money besides,
and having made Hubert rich, he began to dislike Hubert. At last
he was made to believe
, or pretended to believe, that Hubert had
misappropriated some of the Royal treasure; and ordered him to
furnish an account of all he had done in his administration.
Besides which, the foolish charge was brought against Hubert that
he had made himself the King's favourite by magic. Hubert very
well knowing that he could never defend himself against such
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nonsense, and that his old enemy must be determined on his ruin,
instead of answering the charges fled to Merton Abbey. Then the
King, in a violent passion, sent for the Mayor of London, and said
to the Mayor, 'Take twenty thousand citizens, and drag me Hubert de
Burgh out of that abbey, and bring him here.' The Mayor posted off
to do it, but the Archbishop of Dublin (who was a friend of
Hubert's) warning the King that an abbey was a sacred place, and
that if he committed any violence there, he must answer for it to
the Church, the King changed his mind and called the Mayor back,
and declared that Hubert should have four months to prepare his
defence, and should be safe and free during that time.
Hubert, who relied upon the King's word, though I think he was old
enough to have known better, came out of Merton Abbey upon these
conditions, and journeyed away to see his wife: a Scottish
Princess who was then at St. Edmund's-Bury.
Almost as soon as he had departed from the Sanctuary, his enemies
persuaded the weak King to send out one SIR GODFREY DE CRANCUMB,
who commanded three hundred vagabonds called the Black Band, with
orders to seize him. They came up with him at a little town in
Essex, called Brentwood, when he was in bed. He leaped out of bed,
got out of the house, fled to the church, ran up to the altar, and
laid his hand upon the cross. Sir Godfrey and the Black Band,
caring neither for church, altar, nor cross, dragged him forth to
the church door, with their drawn swords flashing round his head,
and sent for a Smith to rivet a set of chains upon him. When the
Smith (I wish I knew his name!) was brought, all dark and swarthy
with the smoke of his forge, and panting with the speed he had
made; and the Black Band, falling aside to show him the Prisoner,
cried with a loud uproar, 'Make the fetters heavy! make them
strong!' the Smith dropped upon his knee - but not to the Black