Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 1.djvu/462

448 Well, the charter was signed, but it was not won. John immediately repudiated it, and the barons rose again in arms to enforce it.

John put down the barons. He raged like a man insane; and we believe that was the secret of his extraordinary and violent character; we believe he was actually insane. He defeated the barons everywhere, except in London, and there the Londoners supported them. But the barons, finding that they could not prevail against John, now perpetrated the most traitorous act which has disgraced the annals of England. They offered the crown of England to the son of Louis, King of France, on condition that he brought over an army to rescue them and their estates from the tyrant who had completely foiled them. Louis came over most gladly, and, had he succeeded, England would have become a dependency of France! But, to the day of John's death,



neither the barons nor the French prince could conquer him. So completely did the barons despair of success, that the Earl of Salisbury, William Marshall, Walter Beaumont, and other barons, abandoned Louis of France and submitted to John; nay, the chroniclers assert that, in his last moments, John received letters from forty of the revolted barons, offering to return to his allegiance, and, of course, to abandon the charter.

So stood affairs at the death of John—he never restored the charter. At this time Louis and the barons not only held London and the south of England, but were powerfully supported in the north by the King of Scotland, and in the west by the prince of the Welsh. The king was but a boy of ten years of age, and, of course, he was made by his guardian, the Earl of Pembroke, to promise charters of anything. A civil war was now become the consequence of the rash act of the barons, and they and their adopted French king stood arrayed against the English king and tho people. Pembroke, whom we believe to have been a good patriot, was disposed to make a truce, and thus to draw tho barons from Louis. But the people cared for neither truce, barons, nor Frenchmen. The sailors, under the brave Hubert de Burgh, the constable of Dover, and the gallant archers of England, under William de Collingham, went hand and heart to work; and so well did they play their part that, in one single year, they had beaten the French and their baronial allies on all hands, and expelled Louis and the Frenchmen from the kingdom. From Collingham's archers Louis himself only escaped by flying on board his ships; and on his return with fresh forces from France, the sailors cut off and captured many of his ships, the bowmen drove the French out of London, and the mariners, under Do Burgh, completed the business by destroying the whole French fleet at the mouth of the Thames with the exception of fifteen vessels.

King Henry III. was firmly set upon the throne, and then a charter was obtained from him, not by the barons, but by the whole people of the realm in Parliament assembled. This is the charter which Hallam, and indeed all the legal historians, declare is the law of the land, John's charter never having been established. And now was seen, by the important additions made to this charter, the source from which it had proceeded. Its benefit was extended to Ireland: a new clause was added, ordering the destruction of every castle built or rebuilt since the commencement of the wars of John and his barons. All the forests which had been enclosed since the reign of Henry II. were thrown open, and the deadly forest laws which ordered a man's eyes to be put out for stealing a deer were abolished or reduced to mildness by a separate charter, called the Charter of the Forests.

Such is the history of Magna Charta. It was not till after a very protracted and sanguinary struggle that the people of England obtained the peaceable enjoyment of it.

Thus completely was the English race developed within less than a century and a half of the Conquest, and thus had they won that great triumph which has placed this country on a basis of freedom so far beyond every other nation in Europe.

Let us now take a brief survey of the progress of

since that period. In narrating the events of the different reigns, we have already mentioned many of them, and may therefore content ourselves with a brief review. The privileges confirmed by Magna Charta to the various classes of English subjects may be divided into four sections. 1. Those to the Church. 2. Those to the barons and knights who held in capite, or directly from the king. 3. Those to cities and the trading community. 4. To all free men; for of the villeins or slaves no party whatever took the least notice.

Along with Archbishop Langton there were six other bishops who took an active part in procuring the charter, and, therefore, the Church was certain to have its interests well cared for. Henry II., by the Constitutions of Clarendon, had endeavoured to reduce the clergy to the same jurisdiction as all other British subjects, and to cut off the pernicious power of a foreign potentate over his subjects—that is, of the Pope. By these famous statutes all presentations to sees and livings wore to be made by the king,