XI. 1216, where their power is founded on an hereditary and inde- C A P. pendent authority, and is not derived from the opinion and favour of the people, the French prince had reafon to dread a fudden reverse of fortune. The king was affembling a confiderable army, with a view of fighting one great battle for his crown; but paffing from Lynne to Lincolnshire, his road lay along the fea-fhore, which was overflowed at high water; and not chufing the proper time for his journey, he loft in the inundation all his carriages, treasure, baggage, and regalia. The affliction for this difafter, and vexation from the distracted state of his affairs, encreafed the ficknefs under which he then laboured; and though he reached the caftle of Newark, he was obliged to halt there, and his diftemper foon after put an end to his life, in the forty-ninth year of his age, 17th Octob. and eighteenth of his reign; and freed the nation from the dangers, to which it was equally expofed by his fuccefs or by his misfortunes. THE character of this prince is nothing but a complication of vices, equally mean and odious; ruinous to himfelf, and deftructive to his people. Cowardice, inactivity, folly, levity, licentioufnefs, ingratitude, treachery, tyranny, and cruelty; all these qualities appear too evidently in the several incidents of his life, to give us room to fufpect, that the difagreeable picture has been anywife overcharged by the prejudices of the ancient hiftorians. It is hard to fay, whether his conduct to his father, his brother, his nephew, or his fubjects, was most culpable; or whether his crimes, in these respects, were not even exceeded by the baseness which appeared in hiş tranfactions with the king of France, the pope, and the barons. His European dominions, when they devolved to him by the death of his brother, were more extenfive than have ever, fince his time, been ruled by any English monarch But he firft loft by his mifconduct the flourishing provinces in France, the ancient patrimony of his family : VOL. II, H He Death and charac ter of the king. XI. 1216. CHA P. He fubjected his kingdom to a fhameful vaffalage under the fee of Rome: He faw the prerogatives of his crown diminished by law, and ftill more reduced by faction: And he died at laft, when in danger of being totally expelled by a foreign power, and of either ending his life miferably in prifon, or feeking fhelter as a fugitive from the purfuít of his enemies. THE prejudices against this prince were fo violent, that he was believed to have sent an embaffy to the Mira→ moulin or emperor of Morocco, and to have offered to change his religion and become Mahometan, in order to purchase the protection of that monarch. But though this story is told us, on plaufible authority, by Matthew Paris, it is in itfelf utterly improbable; except, that there is nothing fo incredible but may be believed to proceed from the folly and wickedness of John. THE monks throw great reproaches on this prince for his impiety and even infidelity; and as an instance of it, they tell us, that, having one day caught a very fat ftag, he exclaimed, How plump and well fed is this animal! and yet I dare fwear, he never heard mass. This fally of wit, úpon the ufual corpulency of the priests, more than all his enormous crimes and iniquities, made him pass with them for an atheist. JOHN left two legitimate fons behind him, Henry, born on the firft of October, 1207, and now nine years of age; and Richard, born on the fixth of January, 1209; and three daughters, Jane afterwards married to Alexander king of Scots; Eleanor married firft to William Marefchal the younger, earl of Pembroke, and then to Simon Mountfort, earl of Leicester; and Ifabella married to the emperor Frederic II. All these children were born to him by Ifabella of Angoulesme, his fecond wife. His illegitimate children were numerous; but none of C HA P. them were any wife distinguished. It was this king, who, in the ninth year of his reign, first gave by charter to the city of London, the right of electing annually a mayor out of its own body, an office which was till now held for life. He gave the city also power to elect and remove its sheriffs at pleasure, and its common-council-men annually. London bridge was finished in this reign: The former bridge was of wood. Maud the empress was the first that built a ftone bridge in England. XI. 1216. APPENDIX II. The FEUDAL and ANGLO-NORMAN T HE feudal law is the chief foundation, both of Appendix the political government and of the jurisprudence, established by the Normans in England. Our subject therefore requires, that we should form a just idea of this law, in order to explain the state, as well of that kingdom, as of all other kingdoms of Europe, which, during those ages, were governed by fimilar institutions. And though I am fenfible, that I must here repeat many obfervations and reflections which have been communicated by others; yet, as every book, agreeably to the obfervations of a great hiftorian", fhould be as complete as poffible within itself, and fhould never refer, for any thing material, to other books, it will be neceffary, in this place, to deliver a fhort plan of that prodigious fa-. bric, which, for feveral centuries, preferved fuch a mixfure of liberty and oppreffion, order and anarchy, ftabi g L'Esprit de Loix. Dr. Robertfon's Hiftory of Scotland. II. |