Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 1.djvu/279

1216. The character of John has been shown only too clearly in the records of those miserable years during which he occupied the throne. It is unquestionable that the very circumstances which entailed so much misery upon the people under his rule, were ultimately of the greatest benefit to the country, and that the cowardice and tyranny of John produced results of fur more importance to the welfare of the English nation than the high military talent and abilities of his predecessors. Yet, however highly we may estimate the national blessings which have followed in the train of Magna Charta, we cannot be blind to the fact that, like every other triumph of freedom, it was bought with tears and blood. John, whose character had always been treacherous and cruel, became savage and brutal to an unprecedented degree after this charter had been wrung from him; and we look in vain for any redeeming feature in his conduct. His vices, in themselves sufficiently execrable, are partially hidden from our view by the greater prominence of his crimes, and of these the dark catalogue extends through every year in which he held the reins of power.



 

The inadequate supply, if not deficiency, of information respecting the great mass of the people in what are generally known as the Dark Ages, but more properly speaking as the Mediæval period, has induced many writers to describe those who lived and flourished in them as rude and unenlightened barbarians.

Before proceeding in our current history, it may be advisable to test the soundness of this opinion, to present our readers with a picture drawn from records and data on which they may rely, drawn chiefly from the lately published rolls of the period.

The bases on which society rests are undoubtedly legal security for person and property, and the possession of a competent degree of wealth.

In these two requisites the Mediæval period has been supposed—erroneously, as we propose to show—to be peculiarly deficient. We have been told that money was so scarce that few persons below the rank of nobles possessed aught beyond the strictly necessary, and that the life of a peasant was considered, not merely by the nobility, 