Runnymede and Lincoln Fair: A Story of the Great Charter

by John G. Edgar

I HAVE stated that between the Plantagenet kings of England and the Anglo-Norman barons there existed no particular sympathy; and considering who the Plantagenet kings were, and what was their origin, it need not be matter of surprise that they cherished something like an antipathy towards the feudal magnates whose ancestors fought at Hastings, and had their names blazoned on the grand roll of Battle Abbey.

It was in the ninth century, when Charles the Bald, one of the heirs of Charlemagne, reigned over France, that a brave and good man, named Torquatus, lived within the limits of the French empire, and passed his time chiefly in cultivating his lands and hunting in his woods. Torquatus had every prospect of living and dying in obscurity, without making his name known to fame. Happening, however, to be summoned to serve his sovereign in war, he gave proofs of such courage and ability that he rose high in the king’s favour, and was for his valuable services rewarded with a forest known as the “Blackbird’s Nest,” and continued to serve Charles the Bald so stoutly and faithfully in the wars with the sea kings, that, when living, he won much renown among his contemporaries, and, when dead, was distinguished by the monkish chroniclers as “another Cincinnatus.”

Tertullus, the son of Torquatus, inherited his father’s talent and prowess, and did such good work in his day that he was rewarded for his signal services to Charles the Bald with the hand of Petronella, the king’s kinswoman; and the heirs of Tertullus, ennobled by worthy exploits and by their Carlovingian blood, became Counts of Anjou and hereditary High Stewards of France. In fact, they had risen to a very high position among the princes of Continental Europe when, in 1130, Fulke, Count of Anjou, mourning the loss of a wife whom he had dearly loved, went on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, wedded the heiress of one of the Baldwins, and ascended the throne which the early crusaders, under Godfrey of Bouillon, had set up in the holy city. But it was in England that the heirs of Torquatus and Tertullus were to figure most prominently, and it was with English history that their name was to be associated even as that of the Pope was with the Church.

Before setting out for the Holy Land, Fulke of Anjou bestowed his hereditary dominions on his son Geoffrey, a bold warrior and an accomplished gentleman, who, from wearing a sprig of flowering broom in his hat, instead of a feather, acquired the surname of Plantagenet. Fortune favoured Geoffrey of Anjou, and enabled him to form an alliance which made his descendants the greatest sovereigns in Christendom. Having attracted the attention and secured the friendship of Henry Beauclerc, King of England, he espoused Henry’s daughter, Maude, the young widow of an Emperor of Germany. Naturally it was supposed that Maude, as her father’s only surviving child, would succeed to England and Normandy on his death. But in that age the laws of succession were ill understood, and when Henry expired, his sister’s son, Stephen, Count of Bouillon, seized the English throne, and, notwithstanding a terrible civil war, contrived to keep it during his life. All Maude’s efforts to unseat him proved unavailing; and, weary of the struggle, she, about 1147, retired to the Continent, and endeavoured to console herself with sovereignty over Normandy.

But meanwhile Maude had become the mother of a son, who, as years passed over, proved a very formidable adversary. Henry Plantagenet was a native of Mantz, in Normandy, where he drew his first breath in 1133; but at an early age he was brought to England to be educated, and while passing his boyhood at Bristol, was made familiar with the country whose destinies he was one day to control. It was not, however, till, on the death of his father, he had become Count of Anjou and Duke of Normandy, and, by his marriage with Eleanor of Guienne, Duke of Aquitaine and Poitou, that, in 1153, he landed in England with the determination of asserting his rights. At first a sanguinary struggle appeared imminent; but Stephen consented to a compromise, and, excluding his own son, acknowledged Henry as heir to the crown, stipulating, however, that he should wear it during his lifetime. Next year Stephen breathed his last, and Henry was crowned in the Cathedral of Winchester, which up to that date was regarded as the proper constitutional capital of England. A terrible task was before him.

At the time of Henry’s coronation the condition of England was wretched in the extreme. Never, even in the worst days of the Norman Conquest, had life and property been so insecure. The laws were utterly impotent to protect the weak against the strong, and the barons set truth, honesty, and humanity at defiance; and, unless history lies, nothing could have been more outrageous than the conduct of the men whose sons afterwards, when they perceived that it was expedient to get the nation over to their side, found it convenient to affect so high a regard for “justice and righteousness.”

“All was dissension, and evil, and rapine,” says the Saxon chronicle, speaking of the reign of Stephen. “The great men rose against him. They had sworn oaths, but they maintained no truth. They built castles which they held out against him. They cruelly oppressed the wretched people of the land with his castle work. They filled their castles with devils and evil men. They seized those whom they supposed to have any goods, and threw them into prison for their gold and silver, and inflicted on them unutterable tortures. Some they hanged up by the feet. They threw them into dungeons with adders, and snakes, and toads. They made many thousands perish with hunger. They laid tribute upon tribute on towns and cities.... The land remained untilled, and the poor starved. To till the land was to plough the sea.”

Such was the state of affairs with which the early Plantagenets had to deal, and such the men who, after having been cowed by the energy and genius of Henry and the vigour and courage of Richard, prepared to raise their banners and head their feudal array with the object of crushing John, whose imprudence and indolence made him a much less formidable adversary than either his father or his brother would have been. Moreover, he stood charged with crimes and follies which made the most loyal Englishman half ashamed of the royal cause.

It was in the midst of his struggles with Philip Augustus that John was first involved in disputes with the barons, on account of their positive refusal to accompany him to the Continent. On this point the barons appear to have been somewhat unreasonable; and John treated them with such hauteur that they announced his bearing quite intolerable. Gradually matters grew worse; and when John was in the midst of his quarrel with the Pope, the barons, believing that the time for retaliation had arrived, espoused the papal cause, and formed a conspiracy for seizing the king, and giving the crown to Simon de Montfort, a French nobleman who afterwards gained an unenviable notoriety as leader of the crusade against the unfortunate Albigenses. Moreover, the barons took great credit with the Pope for having forced John to surrender his crown to the legate. But no sooner did Innocent signify his intention of supporting the king on his throne than the barons changed their tone, and made what political capital they could out of the humiliation which the king had brought upon England when he consented to become the vassal of Rome. Nor were other charges of a scandalous nature wanting to embitter the dispute and add to the exasperation. Almost every baron, in fact, had some complaint to make, and in particular the chiefs of the house of Braose, Fitzwalter, and De Vesci.

William de Braose was an Angevin noble of high rank, and Lord of Bramber, who unfortunately involved himself in a dispute with the crown about a debt which he would not or could not pay. At first De Braose was exiled to Ireland; but, having obtained the king’s sanction to travel through the country to make up the sum, which was forty thousand marks, he availed himself of his liberty to escape to the Continent. His wife and children, however, were not so fortunate. While at Galway, endeavouring to embark for Scotland, they were arrested, brought as prisoners to Windsor, and confined in the castle. While in captivity the whole family died, and it was generally rumoured that they had been inhumanly starved to death.