Page:A General Sketch of Political History from the Earlist Times.djvu/213

 THE WEST IN THE CRUSADING ERA 201 When the strong hand of the great king was removed, his successor Richard left the kingdom almost entirely in the hands of regents. Where a king was able, vigorous, and just, the concentration of power in his hands produced good government. King John showed how bad government could be under the king who played the tyrant. The effect of his rule was to combine the clergy, barons and commons in com- Magna Carta, pelling him to pledge himself to maintain instead of 1215 - breaking the laws of the land, as set forth in the Great Charter which he was forced to seal at Runnymede. Kings after that might attempt to ride roughshod over the Charter, but when they did so their opponents could make a point of claiming that the law was higher than the king, and that they stood for law. There lay the fundamental principle of English liberty. However strong the kings of England had been hitherto, they had always acted at least nominally in concert with the Great Council of the nation. In practice, the Great „ ,. „ .,, , . .', * , Parliament. Council had been an assembly of magnates known in Saxon times as the Witan. Since the Conquest nearly all the magnates were Normans, but the Council was not supposed to have changed its character. It is possible that in theory any freeman was allowed to attend it. It was practically established by the Charter that the king could not alter the laws of the land, or make demands for money, or imprison any one without trial, without the assent of the Great Council. John's successor, Henry 111., during a reign of more than fifty years, repeatedly set the Charter at defiance. The barons combined to resist him, and to maintain their rights under the Charter. Simon de Under the leadership of Simon de Montfort they Montfort. even compelled him to submit himself to the control of a committee of barons. However much individual barons may have been guided by purely personal interest, they were obliged to act as champions of the law and of public welfare, and Montfort himself was no less careful of the rights of the lesser barons and the common folk than of those of the greater barons. Although Montfort fell finally, the contest destroyed the power of the king to act arbitrarily, and established the right of the Council, which now began to be called Parliament, to be consulted.