Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 128.djvu/757

Rh king had granted to the pope and the Roman Church, and the other honours which he had given to the Church of Rome, had been granted and given, not spontaneously, nor out of devotion, but even out of fear, and by their coercion.

The date of this is 1214, a year after the surrender of the crown.

The act of surrender is thus given by Matthew Paris: — "On the 13th of May, 1213, the king, with Pandulph, the earls, the barons, and a great multitude, met at Dover, and unanimously agreed in the forma pacis, or the engagement of peace."

Again: "The king of the English and Pandulph, cum proceribus regni, with the chief men of the kingdom, met at the house of the Knights Templars at Dover, on May 15th," and surrendered the crown.

We come now to a critical period, which, if rightly understood, gives the key to the action and intention of the pope in the condemnation of the Great Charter.

John had made peace by submission, and by a promise to observe the laws and liberties of England. He had bound himself to make restitution for his exactions and spoliations. This peace was hardly concluded before John broke it. Manifestly, he had never intended to keep it. His submission was simply to steal a march upon the barons, and to renew his conflict with fresh advantage.

After his absolution he convened a jury at S. Albans, to assess the compensation due to the clergy; but he took care to be absent, so that nothing was done.

A second meeting was held at Westminster. John was again absent; again they could do nothing. Then there came up a cry from the country, barons and people together, demanding the fulfilment of his engagements.

While the council was sitting, news came that the king was advancing with an armed force. He was on his way to levy war against the barons of Northumberland for refusing to go with him to the wars in France. Archbishop Langton met him at Nottingham, and reminded him that to make war on his liegemen was a violation of his oath of peace. With shouts of passion he at last turned back. In September — that is, three months after the peace had been made — the cardinal bishop of Tusculum came to adjudicate the matter still in dispute between the king and the clergy. At Michaelmas, in a council held at London, the king pretended to issue a commission to estimate the sums extorted by his officers. But once more it came to nothing. He was visibly dissembling. He then tried to detach the bishop from the clergy, by offering a restitution to each severally. They referred the proposal to Rome; which suggestion the king caught at, both because of the delay and because he hoped to make the pope believe the bishops and clergy to be greedy, grasping, and exorbitant. In this he succeeded. The cardinal legate was gained by the king, and began, by his own authority, to fill up the vacant benefices and churches. The archbishop and his suffragans appealed to Rome; but the legate persisting, in January, 1214, both parties sent their envoys to Rome. On July 1, 1214, the legate removed the interdict, which had lasted six years, three months, and fourteen days. He had hardly left S. Paul's church before a vast multitude of every condition came, laying before him all that they had suffered in limb and property by the exactions and violence of the king's officers. In truth, the peace was no peace, and the settlement settled nothing. The king was dissembling, levying war on the barons, and oppressing the Church and the people as before.

The barons therefore consulted for their common safety. At this critical moment, the archbishop produced the charter of Henry I., and the barons at once accepted it as the basis of their demands. Thus far they acted in perfect legality. At this moment the defeat of the king's army at Bovines left John without a party in France, and deserted by the barons of England. He then surrounded himself with mercenaries. On January 7, he went to London; and at the New Temple the barons came to him with an ostentatious display of military preparation, to demand of him the observance of the charter of Henry I. He met this by a double trick; the one a postponement till Easter, the other the assumption of the cross of the Crusade. Once more, with a view to separate the bishops from the barons, and the Church from the people, John granted a charter of liberties to the Church in England. This charter was sent to Rome and confirmed. The pope was thereby led to believe that John's intentions were sincere. The barons persevered in their demands. The king was at Woodstock, and the archbishop remained with him, trying to induce him to grant the demands of the barons. Nearly the whole