Political position of England.
That Great Charter was the joint work of the insurgent lords, and of those who still in name remained faithful to the crown. In many points this rising of the barons bears the appearance of an ordinary feudal insurrection. Closer examination proves that it was of a different character. The very success of Henry II in his great plan of national regeneration had tended to change the character of English politics. Till his time, the bulk of the people had regarded the crown on the whole as a defence against their feudal tyrants. In the pursuit of good government he had crushed the feudal nobles, and had welded Norman and English into one nation. In so doing, he had greatly increased the royal power; for in those early times good government invariably implied a strong monarchy. In patriotic hands his work might have continued. But when the increased royal power passed to reckless rulers, such as Richard and John, it enabled them to play the part of veritable tyrants. They had used this power in ruthlessly pillaging the people. The great justiciaries, Hubert and Fitz-Peter, content with keeping order and retaining constitutional forms, had almost of necessity lent themselves to this course, while lesser officials had undoubtedly acted with arbitrary violence. The interests of the King and his ministers had thus become separated from those of the nation. To oppose this tyranny, nobles and people could now act in concert. The struggle was no longer between King and people on one side against the nobles on the other, but nobles and people had joined against the King. Besides this political change, a great revolution had taken place in the character of the nobility itself. The feudal nobles, the friends of the Conqueror, had for the most part given place to a new nobility, the sons of the counsellors and ministers of Henry II. In the centre of England alone did remnants of the old feudal families remain. The insurrection then, coming from the North, was the work not of feudal barons but of the new ministerial baronage. Again, the claims raised, although, inasmuch as the monarchy was still in form a feudal monarchy, they bear a resemblance to feudal claims, were such as might have been expected from men trained in the habits of administration. They were claims for the redress of abuses of constitutional power, and were based upon a written document. In addition to this, they were supported by the clergy, who were never and could never be feudal in their views, and by the towns, whose interests were always opposed to those of the feudal nobility. There is another thing to be recollected; the Charter, as ultimately granted, was not the same as the demands of the barons. A considerable number of the older barons, of the bishops, and even the Archbishop himself, remained ostensibly true to the King, and were present at Runnymede as his followers. We are told that it was the younger nobles who formed the strength of the reforming party. Nevertheless, with the exception of the King’s actual ministers, and of those foreigners, the introduction of whom was one of his gravest errors, the whole of John’s own following acknowledged the justice of the baronial claims, sympathized with the demands raised, and joined in putting them into the best shape. The movement was in fact, even where not in form, national.
Magna Charta.
The terms of the Charter were in accordance with this state of affairs. To the Church were secured its rights and the freedom of election (1). To the feudal tenants just arrangements in the matters of wardship, of heirship, widowhood, and marriage (2-8). Scutage and aids, which John had from the beginning of his reign taken as a matter of course, were henceforward to be granted by the great council of the kingdom, except in three cases, the deliverance of the king from prison, the knighting of his eldest son, and the marriage of his eldest daughter (12). The same right was secured by the immediate tenants to their sub-tenants. The great council was to consist of archbishops, bishops and abbots, counts and greater barons, summoned severally by writ, and of the rest of the tenants in chief, summoned by general writ to the sheriff (14). The lands of sub-tenants, seized by the king for treason or felony, were to be held by him for a year only, and then to be handed over to the tenant’s immediate lord (32). Similarly the crown was no longer to claim wardship in the case of sub-tenants, nor to change the custom of escheated baronies, nor to fill up vacancies in private abbeys (43, 46). These are all distinct regulations of feudal relations. The more general acts of tyranny of the crown were guarded against, by fixing the Court of Common Pleas at Westminster (17); by the settlement of land processes by itinerant justices in the counties where the disputes arose (18); by the limitations of punishments within reasonable limits (20-22); by the restriction of the powers of constables, sheriffs, and other royal officers, both in the matter of royal lawsuits and of purveyance (28-31); by an article (36), which is held to foreshadow the Habeas Corpus Act, stipulating the immediate trial of prisoners; and by other articles (38-40), which are held to foreshadow trial by jury, and which forbid the passing of sentence except on the verdict of a man’s equals, and witness upon oath. Other points secured their liberties to the free towns and to merchants. This Charter was to be guaranteed by the appointment of a committee of twenty-five nobles, any four of whom might claim redress for infractions of it, and upon refusal proceed to make war upon the king.
John’s attempts to break loose from it.
Louis is summoned. 1216.
This Charter, which with its final clause implied absolute submission, John never intended to keep. No sooner were his first ebullitions of anger over, than he proceeded to take steps for destroying it. Messengers were at once sent to Rome to get it annulled, and to Poitou to collect mercenaries. Troops came over in crowds, and the barons in alarm ordered William D’Aubigné to attack the castle of Rochester. He seized it, but was there besieged, and compelled to surrender to John’s mercenaries. All the common men of the garrison were hanged. John’s other message was equally successful. A letter from Innocent announced that he totally disallowed the Charter, and ordered Langton to excommunicate the King’s enemies. This he refused to do, and other excommunications and interdicts were also futile. John’s temporal weapons were more successful. He overran England with his mercenaries, burning, slaying and harrying with vindictive fury, and so superior was he in the field, that the barons found themselves obliged to summon Louis of France to their assistance. Louis’ wife was John’s niece, and they probably intended to use this slender connection to change the dynasty.
John’s death.
His success was not very rapid, though at first he seemed to have the game in his hands. He wasted his time and lost his opportunity before the castles of Dover and Windsor. His conduct also in bestowing fiefs upon his French followers began to excite the jealousy of the English; and John’s cause was again wearing a more hopeful appearance, when, marching from Lincoln, which he had lately conquered, he crossed the Wash, with all his supplies which he had lately drawn from Lynn. The rise of the tide destroyed the whole of his train, and broken by his loss, or perhaps poisoned, or perhaps a victim to his greediness, he died on the 19th of October at Newark. In July of the same year he had lost his great protector Innocent III.