Langton made no protest against the sentence but went to Rome, and was present at the general council in November. His chiefest work for England was done when the Charter was signed at Runnymead. With the king and the barons at civil war, the country ravaged by John’s foreign bands of merciless savages, and the barons praying Louis, the son of Philip of France, to take the English crown, what could Archbishop Stephen accomplish? Pope Innocent had declared the Charter annulled on the ground that both king and barons had made the pope the over-lord of England, and that in consequence nothing in the government and constitution of the country could be altered without his knowledge and sanction. But as the legate, the primate, and the bishops had all left for Rome, the pope’s disallowing of the Charter never got published in England at all, though it was known that he had sent letters.
The sentence of suspension was removed from Langton in February, 1216. A few months later the great pope, Innocent III., passed away, and in October John was dead.
In 1217 Stephen Langton was back again at Canterbury, to remain for eleven more years the primate of England. With William the Marshall and Hubert de Burgh, Stephen worked for the preservation of public peace during those early years of Henry III. We find him in 1223 demanding a fresh confirmation of the Charter in the council at Oxford, and two years later its solemn proclamation is required by the archbishop and the barons as the price of a new subsidy. Equally resolute is Archbishop Stephen for public order, threatening with all the pains and penalties of excommunication the barons, who (in spite of Hubert de Burgh’s letters from the pope declaring Henry to be of age) were anxious to keep the royal castles in their own hands. “At a time when constitutional freedom was hardly known, when insurrection seemed the only possible means of checking despotism, he (Langton) organized and established a movement for freedom which by every act and word of his life he showed to be in opposition to mere anarchy.” (C. E. Maurice.)
Stephen Langton was never canonized, though application was made to Rome to that end shortly after his death in 1228. His learning had made him famous in Paris before Pope Innocent summoned him to Rome to become cardinal priest of St. Chrysogonus. His wise statesmanship was proved by the victory he won for England’s liberties over so energetic and ruthless a despot as John, and with such material as the barons. His strength of character and disinterested patriotism were impaired by no taint of baseness or self seeking. If Stephen Langton is not numbered with the saints, he ranks high in the great list of England’s primates, serving religion as faithfully as he served justice and social order, and his name is resplendent for all time in the charters of English liberty.
Bishop Grosseteste, the Reformer
1235–1253
Authorities: Letters of Robert Grosseteste, edited by Luard; Monumenta Franciscana; Letters of Adam of March and Eccleston on the coming of the Friars, edited by Brewer; Annales Monastici—Burton and Dunstable; Matthew Paris (Rolls’ Series); Samuel Pegge—Life of Robert Grosseteste, 1793; F. S. Stevenson, M.P.—Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln; M. M. C. Calthrop—Victoria County History—Lincolnshire; Gasquet—Henry III. and the Church.
BISHOP GROSSETESTE
THE REFORMER 1235–1253
The story of Robert Grosseteste’s bishophood is the record of eighteen years’ unflinching battle with abuses in Church and State. From his enthronement as Bishop of Lincoln in 1235 till his death in 1253 Grosseteste is conspicuous as a reformer. Now it is the slackness of the clergy he is combatting, enforcing discipline on men and women who, vowed to religion, preferred an easier way of life. At another time he is maintaining the laws and liberties of the nation against Henry III., who with all his piety knew neither honesty nor truth in his sovereignty. Right on till the last year of his life Grosseteste is as vigorous in resisting papal encroachments on the English Church as he is in dealing with his clergy or with the king. As a reformer his work is threefold:—(1) The correction of current abuses in the Church. (2) Maintenance of justice under the misrule of Henry III. (3) Resistance to the aggressive claims of the papacy. With all this work, fighting enemies of England at home and abroad, Grosseteste is busy administering his enormous diocese of Lincoln—then the largest in the country, including as it did the counties of Lincoln, Leicester, Buckingham, Huntingdon, Northampton, Oxford and Bedford (Oxford and Peterborough were afterwards carved out of Lincoln)—and is found writing to and advising all manner of men, kings, nobles and peasants.