Other questions had arisen in connexion with the settlement between Church and king. There were no less than six vacant sees and thirteen vacant abbeys,[846] all, of course, in the king’s hands. In July 1213 John issued orders for filling these vacancies in the manner which had been customary under Henry II.; the several chapters were bidden to send delegates, by whom an election was to be made in the king’s presence, wherever he might chance to be.[847] This arrangement implied a tacit understanding that the delegates were to elect a candidate designated by the king. The bishops seized their opportunity to protest against this practice and claim for the churches their canonical right of free election, subject only to the royal assent, signified by the grant of the regalia. The legate seems to have been, passively at least, on the side of the Crown; but John was anxious to avoid any fresh quarrel with the primate, and he therefore allowed the elections to be left in abeyance till Nicolas should receive instructions about the matter from the Pope. These came at last in a somewhat ambiguous form. Innocent bade Nicolas cause the vacant sees and abbeys to be filled with men “not only distinguished for their good life and learning, but also faithful to the king and useful as helpers and advisers for the welfare of the realm, and appointed by means of canonical election or postulation, the king’s assent being sought thereunto.”[848] It was obviously possible to interpret this letter as sanctioning, by implication at least, the claims of the Crown; and Nicolas was quite willing thus to interpret it in John’s favour. John, however, knew that no such interpretation would ever be accepted by Langton; and with Langton he had no mind to quarrel at that moment, even though he might have the legate on his own side. He did indeed issue on January 2, 1214, orders for the election of a bishop to Worcester and an abbot to Eynsham, “according to the customs of the realm”;[849] but he seems to have immediately afterwards made an arrangement with the archbishop which satisfied the latter for the time being. On the 12th John signified to Stephen his acceptance of “the form known to us concerning the making of elections, saving our right in all things”; he abandoned his claim to have the elections held only in his own presence, and delegated the power of giving them the royal assent to the ministers who were to have the charge of the realm during his absence beyond the sea; and he closed his letter to the archbishop with the words: “Be assured that there is no controversy between us.”[850] On the 26th he wrote again to Stephen, requesting him to confirm the election of the vice-chancellor, Walter de Gray, to the see of Worcester, and issued orders for elections to five bishoprics and three great abbeys.[851]
1213
What made both John and Stephen anxious for an agreement on this point was the king’s approaching departure for the Continent. Soon after Stephen’s arrival in England John had made up his mind that his expedition to Poitou must be postponed till the spring,[852] and in August (1213) he fixed February 2, 1214, as its approximate date.[853] Throughout the autumn and winter the fleet was preparing at Portsmouth under the superintendence of William de Wrotham, archdeacon of Taunton.[854] Arrangements were also in progress for securing the tranquillity of the realm during the king’s absence. On June 3 John—according to his own account at Pandulf’s desire—had made a truce with the Welsh to last till August 1.[855] By August 25 he had enlisted the aid of the newly arrived primate as a peacemaker between the English realm and these troublesome neighbours; the wardens of the Marches were authorized to agree to a prolongation of the truce till November 1, on the understanding that at its expiration the archbishop of Canterbury would negotiate with the Welsh on the king’s behalf.[856] Of these negotiations there is no further record; but they seem to have resulted in keeping the Welsh in check for some months at least.
In Ireland and in England John had to provide himself with new vicegerents. In July Bishop John of Norwich resigned the justiciarship of the Irish March to go to Rome on a mission for the king; the archbishop of Dublin was appointed justiciar in his stead.[857] On October 14 the office of chief justiciar of England was vacated by the death of Geoffrey Fitz-Peter,[858] who had held it ever since 1198, when he was appointed to it by Richard on the resignation of Hubert Walter. It is impossible to regard Geoffrey as a patriot; had he been one, he could scarcely have held the reins of government under John for fourteen years without coming into open conflict with his master. He was, however, a man of much weight in the land by reason of his noble birth, his great wealth, and his knowledge of law, and also because he was connected by kindred, affinity or friendship with all the great baronial houses. Such a man was necessarily somewhat of a check upon the self-will of John. The king’s personal feeling towards his minister found a characteristic expression when he heard of Geoffrey’s death: “When he gets to hell,” laughed John, “he may greet Archbishop Hubert, whom he is sure to meet there!”[859] So long as the king was himself in England he could do without any justiciar at all; and accordingly no successor was appointed to Geoffrey for more than three months. John was, however, too cautious to venture upon any glaring abuse of his newly acquired freedom of action[860] at a moment when it was of the utmost importance for him to conciliate all parties and all classes by every means in his power. The one recorded incident of this period of John’s personal government, indeed, looks almost like a dim foreshadowing of one of the most weighty innovations which were to be made by the constitutional reformers of the latter part of the century.
It seems that at the end of October or early in November the tenants by knight-service were ordered to meet the king at Oxford on November 15. On November 7 John sent letters to the sheriffs bidding each one of them cause the knights within his shire to appear as previously directed, with their arms, the barons also in person but without arms, “and”—so ran the writ—“that thou cause to come thither at the same time four discreet men of the shire, to speak with us concerning the affairs of our realm.”[861] This writ is the earliest known instance of an attempt to call into council on “the affairs of the realm” representatives of the freemen of the shire, as distinguished from the tenants-in-chivalry. Representatives in the strict sense of the word, indeed, they were not; the writ says nothing of how they were to be chosen, and there can be little doubt that they would be selected by the sheriff. Still, the fact remains that—so far as extant evidence goes—John Lackland seems to have been the first English statesman who proposed to give some place, however subordinate, in the great council of the realm to laymen who were neither barons nor knights, but simple freemen. His motive is plain; he was seeking to win the support of the yeomen as a counterpoise to the hostility of the barons. Unluckily we know nothing of the results of his experiment, and cannot even be sure that it was actually tried; for though the king was certainly at Oxford in that year on November 15 and the two following days,[862] no mention occurs, in either chronicle or record, of any council holden there at that date.
1213–14
At Christmas John held his court at Windsor, “where he distributed robes of state to a multitude of his nobles.”[863] Immediately afterwards Count Ferrand of Flanders came over to cement his alliance with the English king by performing his homage to him in person, at Canterbury, in the second week of January 1214.[864] Raymond of Toulouse had been over shortly before; the fortunes of war had gone utterly against him, and nothing but prompt succour from John, in some shape or other, could enable him to hold out any longer in his capital city, the sole refuge now left to him. He is said to have gone back, after doing homage to John, with a subsidy of ten thousand marks.[865] Early in January the king announced to the primate and the bishops that he himself was about to depart over sea, and begged that they would lend their support to Bishop Peter of Winchester and the other persons in whose charge he intended to leave the kingdom during his absence.[866] At the end of the month he put in train a scheme for conciliating the eldest son of the late justiciar by marrying him to the greatest heiress in England—that same Countess Isabel of Gloucester who had once been married to John himself.[867] On February 1 John by letters patent appointed Peter des Roches, the bishop of Winchester, to the office of justiciar of England, and committed his realm to the custody and protection of the Holy Roman Church, the Pope and the Legate, leaving Peter as keeper of the peace in his stead.[868] Next day he embarked at Portsmouth with his queen, his son Richard,[869] his niece Eleanor of Britanny, and a quantity of treasure; he spent a few days at Yarmouth in the Isle of Wight, and thence sailed to Poitou.[870]
1214
It was evidently of set purpose that the appointment of a new chief justiciar had been delayed till the very eve of the king’s departure. When it came to the knowledge of the barons, they all grumbled at having a foreigner set over them;[871] but they did not know it till the expedition had sailed, and their discontent could vent itself only in useless words.