A history of England

by Charles Oman

The baronage and Archbishop Langton.

The last act of John's troubled reign was now beginning. While the king was dreaming of nothing but war in France, the nation was preparing to put a stop to his erratic and tyrannical rule by armed force. When Archbishop Langton was received in England, he proved himself no mere creature of the Pope, but a good Englishman. One of his first acts was to propose to the baronage, at a great assembly in St. Paul's Cathedral, that the king should be asked to ratify and reissue the charter that his great-grandfather Henry I. had granted to the English people, binding himself to abstain from all vexatious and oppressive customs, and abide by the ancient customs of the realm. This proposal was accepted at once by the great majority of the barons as the wisest and most constitutional means of bringing pressure on the king.

Invasion of France.—Defeat and return of John.

John meanwhile had called out the whole military force of the nation for an invasion of France. But all the barons of the North refused to follow him, and so great was the discontent of the English that he had mainly to depend on foreign mercenaries. He staked all his fortunes on the ensuing campaign, believing that if he could reconquer his lost continental dominions, he would afterwards win his way to complete control in England. His schemes were very far-reaching: Philip was to be attacked from north and south at once; while John was to land in Poitou and march on the Loire, a great confederacy of John's allies were to assail France from the north. This league was headed by John's nephew, Otho of Saxony, who claimed the title of emperor, but had been withstood in Germany by competitors whom Philip of France had supported. In revenge Otho gathered a North-German army, supported by the Dukes of Brabant and Holland, and the Counts of Boulogne and Flanders. John sent a mercenary force under the Earl of Salisbury to join him, and the combined host entered France and met King Philip at Bouvines, near Lille. John had trusted that his own attack on southern France would have distracted the French king's attention, but Philip left him almost unopposed, and gathered the whole force of France to oppose the Germans and Flemings. While John was overrunning Poitou and storming Angers, Philip was crushing his confederates. At the battle of Bouvines the combined army was scattered to the winds; the emperor was put to flight, and the Earl of Salisbury and the Count of Boulogne captured (July 27, 1214). Otho of Saxony was ruined by the fight, and never raised his head again; nor did any German host invade France for the next three hundred years. John, though he had not been present at the fight, was as effectually crushed as Otho. Free from danger from the north, the French king turned upon him, and drove him out of his ephemeral conquests in Poitou, so that he had to return to England completely foiled and beaten.

The barons take up arms.

But in England John had now to face his angry baronage. When he came home in wrath, and began to threaten to punish every man who had not followed him to the invasion of France, the barons drew together and prepared for armed resistance. In earlier days we have seen the English nobility withstanding the king in the cause of feudal anarchy. In the time of Stephen or of Henry II., the crown had represented the interests of the nation, and the barons those of their own class alone. It was then for England's good that the king should succeed in establishing a strong central government by putting down his turbulent vassals. But now things were changed. Henry II. had made the crown so strong that the nation was in far greater danger of misgovernment by a tyrannical king than of anarchy under a mob of feudal chiefs. The barons did not any longer represent themselves alone; they were closely allied both with the Church and with the people for the defence of the common rights of all three against a grasping and unscrupulous monarch. In the present struggle the baronage were headed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, their wisest counsellor, and they were everywhere supported both by the towns and by the smaller freemen of the whole realm. We shall see that in the oncoming struggle they demanded, not new privileges for themselves, but law and liberty for every subject of the English crown.

The first meeting of the barons was held at Bury St. Edmunds, in November, 1214: it was attended mainly by the lords of the North; the majority of the nobility had not yet moved. They formulated their demand that the king should give England a charter of liberties, drew up a list of the points which were to be insisted on, and determined to go in arms to the king at Christmas to lay their requests before him. John was seriously frightened; he asked the Pope's aid, took the vows of a crusader in order to get the sympathy of the Church on his side, and collected an army of mercenaries. But when he sounded the intentions of those of his vassals who had not yet taken arms, he found that one and all approved of the demands of the insurgent barons, and refused to aid him against them.

Meeting at Runnymede.

John was always lacking in moral courage; instead of taking the field at the head of his mercenaries, he began to treat with the rebels, resolved to grant all they asked, and then to bide his time and repudiate his promises at the earliest possible opportunity. So befell the famous meeting at Runnymede, where the king solemnly swore to grant all the provisions of the "Great Charter," which had been drawn up for his signature by Archbishop Langton and a committee composed of an equal number of the insurgent barons and of those who had not taken up arms.

The Great Charter.