prive him of the remainder. To him, therefore the pope made a tender of the kingdom of England; and Philip ardently A. D. embraced the offer. To strengthen the hands of Philip still 1212. more, the pope published a crusade against the deposed monarch all over Europe, exhorting the nobility, the knights, and men of every condition, to take up arms against that persecutor of the church, and to enlist under the French banner. Philip was not less active on his part: he levied a great army; and, summoning all the vassals of the crown to attend him at Rouen, he collected a fleet of seventeen hundred vessels in the sea-ports of Nor- 1218. mandy and Picardy, already devouring in imagination the kingdom he was appointed to possess. A. D. John, who, unsettled and apprehensive, scarcely knew where to turn, was still able to make an expiring effort to receive the enemy. All-hated as he was, the natural enmity between the French and the English, the name of king, which he still retained, and some remaining power, put him at the head of sixty thousand men ; a sufficient number indeed, but not to be relied on; and with these he advanced to Dover. Europe now regarded the important preparations on both sides with impatience; and the decisive blow was soon expected, in which the church was to triumph or to be overthrown. But neither Philip nor John had ability equal to the pontiff by whom they were actuated; he appeared on this occasion too refined a politician for either. He only intended to make use of Philip's power to intimidate his refractory son, not to destroy him. He expected more advantages from his agreement with a prince so abject both in character and fortune, than from his alliance with a great and victorious monarch, who, having nothing else left to conquer, might direct his power against his benefactor. He therefore secretly commissioned Pandolf, his legate, to admit of John's submission, in case it should be offered; and he dictated the terms which would be proper for him to impose. In consequence of this, the legate passed through France, where he beheld Philip's great armament ready to set sail, and highly commended that monarch's zeal and expedition. From thence he went in person, or, as some say, sent over an envoy, to Dover, under pretence of negociating with the barons, and had a conference with John upon his arrival. He there represented to this forlorn prince the numbers of the enemy, the hatred of his own subjects, and the secret confederacy which had been formed in England against him. He intimated that there was but one way to secure himself from impending danger; which was, to put himself under the pope's protection, who was a merciful father, and still willing to receive a repentant sinner to his bosom. John was too much intimidated by the manifest danger of his situation not to embrace every means offered for his safety. He assented to the truth of the legate's remonstrances, and took an oath to perform whatever stipulations the pope should impose. When he had thus sworn to the performance of an unknown command, the artful Italian so well managed the barons, and so effectually intimi dated the king, that he persuaded him to take the most extraordinary oath in all the records of history, before all the people, kneeling upon his knees, and with his hands held up between those of the legate. "I, John, by the grace of God king of England and lord of Ireland, in order to expiate my sins, from my own free will, and the advice of my barons, give to the church of Rome, to pope Innocent and his successors, the kingdom of England, and all other prerogatives of my crown. I will hereafter hold them as the pope's vassal. I will be faithful to God, to the church of Rome, to the pope my master, and his successors legitimately elected. I promise to pay him a tribute of a thousand marks yearly; to wit, seven hundred for the kingdom of England, and three hundred for the kingdom of Ireland." Having thus done homage to the legate, and agreed to reinstate Langton in the primacy, he received the crown, which he had been supposed to have forfeited, while the legate trampled under his feet the tribute which John had consented to pay. Thus, after all his armaments and expectations, Philip saw himself disappointed of his prey, and perceived that the pope had overreached him in this transaction. Nevertheless, as he had undertaken the expedition at the pope's request, he was resolved to prosecute the war in opposition to him and all his censures. He laid before his vassals the ill treatment he had received from the court of Rome; and they all avowed to second his enterprise, except the earl of Flanders, who declared against the impiety of the undertaking. In the meantime, while the French king was resolving to bring this refractory nobleman to his duty, the English admiral attacked the French fleet in their harbours, where he took three hundred ships, and destroyed a hundred more. Philip finding it impossible to prevent the rest from falling into the hands of the enemy, set fire to them himself, and was thus obliged to give up all designs upon England. John was now once more, by the most abject A. D. submissions, reinstated in power; but his late humiliations 1214. did not in the least serve to relax his cruelty or insolence. One Peter of Pontefract, a hermit, had foretold that the king this very year should lose his crown; and for that rash prophecy he had been thrown into Corfe castle: John now determined to punish him as an impostor, and had him arraigned for that purpose. The poor hermit, who was probably some wretched enthusiast, asserted the truth of his prediction, alleging that the king had given up his crown to the pope, from whom he again received it. This argument would have prevailed with any person less cruel than John. The defence was supposed to augment the crime. Peter was dragged at horses' tails to the town of Wareham, and there hanged on a gibbet with his son. In this manner, by repeated acts of cruelty, by expeditions without effect and humiliations without reserve, John was long become the detestation of all mankind. Equally odious and contemptible, both in public and private life, he affronted the barons by his inso lence, and dishonoured their families by his debaucheries; he enraged them by his tyranny, and impoverished them by his exactions. But now, as he had given up the independence of his kingdom to a foreign power, his subjects thought they had a right to claim a part of that power which he had been granting so liberally to strangers. The barons had been long forming a confederacy against him; but their union was broken, or their aims disappointed, by various and unforeseen accidents. Nothing at present seemed so much to forward their combinations as the concurrence of Langton the primate, who, though forced upon the kingdom by the see of Rome, amply compensated to his countrymen by his attachment to their real interests. This prelate, either a sincere friend of the people or a secret enemy to the king; or supposing that, in their mutual conflict, the clergy would become superior; or, perhaps, instigated by all these motives; had formed a plan for reforming the government, which still continued in a very fluctuating situation. At a synod of his prelates and clergy, convened in St. Paul's on pretence of examining the losses sustained by the exiled bishops, he conferred privately with a number of barons, and expatiated upon the vices and the injustice of their sovereign. He showed them a copy of Henry the First's charter, which was luckily found in a monastery; for so little had those charters, extorted from kings at their coronation, been hitherto observed, that they soon came into disuse, and were shortly after buried in oblivion. There was but one copy of this important charter now left in the kingdom; and that, as was observed, was found in the rubbish of an obscure monastery. However, it contained so many articles tending to restore and fix the boundaries of justice, that Langton exhorted the confederating barons to insist on the rewal and observance of it. The barons swore they would lose their lives sooner than forego those claims that were founded on nature, on reason, and precedent. The confederacy every day began to spread wider, and to take in almost all the barons of England. A new and a more numerous meeting was summoned by Langton, at St. Edmund's-bury, under colour of devotion. He again produced to the assembly the charter of Henry, and renewed his exhortations to continue steadfast and zealous in their former laudable conspiracy. The barons, inflamed by his eloquence, and still more by their injuries, and also encouraged by their numbers, solemnly swore before the high altar to adhere to each other, to insist on their demands, and to persevere in their attempts until they obtained redress. They agreed, that after Christmas they would prefer their common petition in a body; and in the meantime separated, with resolutions of putting themselves in a posture of defence, of enlisting men, and fortifying their castles. Pursuant to their promise and obligations, they repaired, in the beginning of January, to London, aecoutred in military garb and equipage, and presented their 1215. demands to the king; alleging that he had promised to grant A. D. them at the time he was absolved from his excommunication, a confirmation of the laws of Edward the Confessor. On the other hand, John, far from complying with their request, resented their presumption, and even insisted upon a promise under their hands and seals, that they would never demand, or attempt to extort, such privileges for the future. This, however, they boldly refused, and considered as an unprecedented act of power; so that, perceiving their unanimity, in order for a while to break their combination, he desired farther time to consider of an answer to their demands. He promised, that at the festival of Easter he would give a positive reply to their petition; and offered them the archbishop of Canterbury, the bishop of Ely, and the earl-mareschal, as sureties for fulfilling his engagements. The barons accepted the terms, and peaceably returned to their habitations. They saw their own strength, and were certain at any time to enforce their demands. Freedom could never have found a more favourable conjuncture for its exertions than under the government of a weak and vicious monarch, such as John was, whose resistance only served to give splendour to every opposition. Although he had granted the barons assurances of his good intentions, yet nothing was farther from his heart than complying with their demands. In order to break their league, he had recourse to the power of the clergy, of whose influence, he had experienced from his own recent misfortunes. He courted their favour, by granting them a charter, establishing all those rights of which they were already in possession, and which he now pretended liberally to bestow, when he had not the ability to refuse. He took the cross, to ingratiate himself still farther; and, that he might enjoy the privileges annexed to the profession, he appealed to the pope against the usurpation of his barons, and craved his holy protection. Nor were the barons remiss in their appeals to the pontiff. They alleged that their just privileges were abridged, and entreated the interposition of his authority with the king. The pope did not hesitate in taking his part. A king who had already given up all to his protection, who had regularly paid the stipulated tributes, and who took every occasion to advance the interests of the church, was much more meritorious in his eyes than a confederacy of barons, whom, at best, he could manage with difficulty, and whose first endeavours would perhaps be to shake off his authority. He therefore wrote letters to England, reproaching Langton and the bishops for favouring these dissensions, and commanding them to promote peace between the parties. He exhorted the barons to conciliate the king by humble entreaties; and promised, upon their obedience, to interpose his own authority in favour of such of their petitions as he should find to be just. At the same time he annulled their associations, and forbad them to engage in any confederacy for the future. Neither the bishops nor barons paid the least regard to the pope's remonstrance; and as for John's pretences of taking the cross, they turned them into ridicule. They had for some time detected the interested views of the see of Rome. They found that the pope con sulted only his own interests, instead of promoting those of the church or the state. They continued, indeed, to reverence his authority as much as ever, when exerted on points of duty; but they now began to distinguish between his religious and his political aims, adhering to the one and rejecting the other. The bishops and barons, therefore, on this occasion, employed all their arts and emissaries to kindle a spirit of revolt in the nation; and there was now scarcely a nobleman in the kingdom who did not either personally engage in the design, or secretly favour the undertaking. After waiting till Easter, when the king promised to return them an answer, they met by agreement at Stamford. There they assembled a force of above two thousand knights, and a body of foot to a prodigious number. Thence, elated with their power, they marched to Brackley, about twenty miles from Oxford, the place where the court then resided. John, hearing of their approach, sent the archbishop of Canterbury, the earl of Pembroke, and others of his council, to know the particulars of their request, and what those liberties were which they so earnestly importuned him to grant. The barons delivered a schedule, containing the chief articles of their demands, and of which the charters of Henry and Edward formed the ground-work. No sooner were they shown to the king, than he burst into a furious passion, and asked why the barons did not also demand his kingdom; swearing that he would never comply with such exorbitant demands. But the confederacy was now too strong to fear much from the consequences of his resentment. They chose Robert Fitzwalter for their general, whom they dignified with the title of " Mareschal of the army of God and of the Holy Church," and proceeded without farther ceremony to make war upon the king. They besieged Northampton, they took Bedford, they were joyfully received into London. They wrote circular letters to all the nobility and gentlemen who had not yet declared in their favour, and menaced their estates with devastation in case of refusal or delay. In the meantime the timid king was left with a mean retinue of only seven knights, at Odiham in Hants, where he vainly endeavoured to avert the storm by the mediation of his bishops and ministers. He appealed to Langton against these fierce remonstrants, little suspecting that the primate himself was leagued against him. He desired him to fulminate the thunders of the church upon those who had taken arms against their prince; and aggravated the impiety of their opposition, as he was engaged in the pious and noble duties of the crusade. Langton permitted the tyrant to waste his passion in empty complaints, and declared he would not pass any censure where he found no delinquent. He promised indeed that much might be done, if some foreign auxiliaries, whom John had lately brought over, were dismissed; and the weak prince, supposing his advice sincere, banded a great number of Germans and Flemings whom he had retained in his service. When the king had thus left himself without protection, he thought it was the duty of Langton to perform his promise, and to give him the aid of the church, since he had discard K dis |