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, Brabançon, 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, threw 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 Brabançons and Gascons, inviting them to the conquest of England, and promising them the castles and manors of his present subjects.