This grand declaration was five hundred years ahead of the times, and was not made a fact sooner than that; but all the same, it made the condition of “freeman” in England a great prize for the slave to struggle for, and under all the stormy vicissitudes of royal, baronial and clerical oppression of succeeding ages; made the condition of men in England infinitely superior to that of subjects of other realms—in fact, and in the end, made England what she is, America what she is as to free institutions.
So, on the whole, those iron-fisted old barons did their work well, according to their light and the condition of their times; and Runnymede has become, by their great act, a shrine of freedom.
But here our thanks to John must cease. His phenomenal wickedness had done the world all the good it could. He did not mean it, of course. When he had signed the charter, and as soon as the Army of God had dispersed, he sent to the Pope for absolution from his oath, and to the continent for an army of murderers and marauders. He hurled upon his realm the excommunications of the Church and the torch and sword of his mercenaries. He went through England from end to end, as if determined to annihilate all life and property in his wild, insatiable revenge. His career of ruin was short. We regret that it could not have been terminated by the sword of justice, instead of by nature, and so have rounded up the measure of retribution. But every writer and every reader of English history, from that day to this, has in thought and wish constituted himself John’s executioner, and, setting off against the glory of Runnymede his detestable career, has learned to loathe injustice, treachery, cowardice, and sin in high places.
[To be continued.]
We can not be just if we are not kind.—Vauvenargues.