king, and to constrain him by arms and the withdrawal of fealty if he refused a peaceable consent. As men, however, who knew the risk of their enterprise, at a time when every fortress in England was garrisoned bỷ royal mercenaries, they agreed to collect men and arms, and to meet after the approaching Christmas and urge their petition with an army at their back. The precaution was the more necessary as John, vaguely sensible that there was thunder in the air, and alarmed by the recall of his partisan, the legate, tried to detach the clergy from the national cause by granting them absolute liberty of election.

This remarkable charter was issued the very day after the barons' meeting at Bury St. Edmunds, and it reflects the highest credit on Stephen Langton and his followers that the enormous bribe to their feelings as churchmen, backed, as it was in many cases, by restitution of honor and estates, failed to make them forget that they were citizens. To the barons, of course, the new charter was of no interest, except as an item in John's degradation, and a declaration of war against themselves. Accordingly, as soon as John came from Worcester, where he had held his Christmas court, to London, the confederates, in unwonted military array, waited upon him, and claimed that he should perform the oath which he had sworn at Stephen Langton's bidding in Winchester, and confirm the constitution as defined by the charter of Henry I. The king feared to refuse compliance with the demand of armed men, ready for action, and begged for time, that he might think the matter over and give his answer at Easter. The barons reluctantly consented, their cause being as yet espoused only by about half of the nobility, and the primate, the bishop of Ely, and the earl-marshal, were persuaded to become sponsors for the king's good faith.

The pledge was a perilous one, for John meditated nothing less than observance of his word. He was singularly destitute of counselors and supporters, for the legate had

left the country in disgrace for maladministration, and Geoffrey Fitz-Petre and the bishop of Norwich were dead; but he took instant steps to procure the release of the earl of Salisbury, abstained for a time from any gross act of oppression, and sent commissioners to the different counties to explain his quarrel with the lords and enforce new oaths of homage on the free tenants. But he counted too much, in a time of popular excitement, on the silent, unceasing feuds between gentry and baronage. Men generally refused to take the oath with the new clause inserted, that they would support the king against "the now talked-of charter," and John was obliged to desist from the attempt. He had thought of bringing over troops from Poitou, but the tidings of disaffection alarmed him, and he hastily recalled his orders. Nothing now remained but to claim the protection of the Church, and hold his castles till the barons were wearied out, or till a royal party arose. That no precaution might be omitted, he assumed the white cross, in the hope of investing himself with the inviolable character of a crusader. But his chief trust was in Innocent. The pope had been applied to by Eustace de Vesci, as the barons' agent, in the preceding autumn, and had sternly admonished them not to disturb the course of royal justice. The cruel irony fell upon deaf ears. Both parties now sent commissioners to Rome, and Innocent unhesitatingly supported his vassal. He blamed the barons, who demanded, sword in hand, the rights they ought to have, prayed humbly and devoutly of "our dearest son in Christ, the illustrious King John," and he blamed the bishops who had sympathized with the barons. But the apostolical counsels reached England when the whole nation was in revolt.

By Easter the party of reform, numbering four earls and forty great barons, had assembled a large and well-appointed army. They halted at Brackley, in Northamptonshire, to receive the primate and earl-marshal, who came as royal commissioners to learn their demands. When these were reported

to John, who was then at Oxford, he asked, with a bitter laugh, why the barons did not at once ask for the kingdom, and swore that he would never yield liberties which would leave himself in the position of a slave. As soon as his answer was known, the barons declared Robert Fitz-Walter "Marshal of the Army of God and of Holy Church," and proceeded to invest Northampton. But, wanting all engines of war, they could effect nothing, and accordingly marched on London, receiving admittance, by the way, into Bedford from the governor, William Beauchamp. London was opened to their advance-guard by a friendly party among the citizens (May 24), and the royal troops were easily overpowered, though the garrison of the Tower held out to the last. The soldiers of the Church filled their purses with the spoil of royal partisans and of the Jews, who always suffered in time of civil commotion, and who saw the very stones of their houses taken away to strengthen the city walls. The metropolis became the center of operations; but the whole country was in rebellion. Alexander of Scotland and Llewellyn of Wales were said to favor the revolt, and it often happened that where the father was royalist the son was in the camp of the insurgents. Presently one party seized Exeter, another Lincoln, and a riot took place in the streets of Northampton, in which many of the king's garrison were slain, the remainder retaliating by burning part of the town. As always happened in civil wars, the royal parks and forests were among the first objects of attack.

John had tried in vain to induce the primate to excommunicate the rebels, and the letters of Innocent were mere waste paper. In his extremity the king resorted to his favorite expedient, and called over his mercenaries from Poitou and other parts. The unpopular act probably contributed to detach the remainder of his adherents, and he found himself, by the beginning of June, with scarcely seven horsemen in his train. Even the bishops, who were nominally on his

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side, except the deeply injured Giles de Braose of Hereford, were of doubtful loyalty, and the earl-marshal himself had a son, his eldest, among the insurgents. In this extremity, fearing to be overpowered and dreading the arrival of the northern barons, who were known to be on their way, and who were his bitterest foes, John consented to a conference between Staines and Windsor. The army of the barons encamped on the broad plain of Runnimede, on the southern bank of the Thames; the royal forces were on the north, and the negotiations were carried on in an island. John came prepared to concede every thing, and the Great Charter was agreed to and received the royal seal in a day.

XVI.

DEATH OF KING JOHN.-Pearson.

[John at once sought to break away from the obligations of the Great Charter. He summoned mercenaries to his aid, and displayed so much ability and energy that the barons were forced to look abroad for assistance. They invited Lewis, son of the king of France, to become king of England. It was a dangerous move, and would probably have resulted in a hopeless division of the baronial party, had not the timely death of John relieved it from its embarrassing situation.

As soon as he had effected the object of relieving Lincoln and learned that the barons were not in pursuit of him, John decided to march southward again. In passing over the Wash, between the Cross - keys and the Foss- dike, he marched too near the sea at a time when the tide was still high, and lost many of his sumpter-mules and household retinue, with his jewels, including the crown, and a shrine containing relics which he especially prized. At the abbey of Swineshead, where he passed the night, he is said, by the more credible account, to have eaten peaches in excess;

vexation, fatigue, and the surfeit bringing on a dysentery. Later legends declared that a monk, who heard him boast he would raise the price of the loaf from a half-penny to a shilling, devoted himself for his country and poisoned the fruit he presented, eating of it himself, to inspire confidence, and dying. The illness, however caused, did not hinder John from proceeding the next day, to Sleaford, where he learned that Dover still held out and had obtained a truce till Easter, but was probably bound to surrender if it were not relieved by that date.

The news was bad medicine for a sick spirit, and the king's next stage, to Newark, was his last. His last acts were to write a letter to Pope Honorius (Oct. 15), recommending his young son to him, and to dictate a short will, by which he constituted what may be called a council of regency, with the legate Gualo at its head. But its provisions are chiefly the work of a craven conscience, desiring to purchase pardon of heaven by alms to the poor, and to religious houses, by “aid to the land of Jerusalem," and "by making satisfaction to God and holy Church for the damage and injury done them." The sacrilege wrought in Croyland monastery, where Savary de Mauléon's men had carried off spoils and captives in mid-mass, not three weeks before, may, perhaps, have risen up accusingly before the king's fevered fancy. On whom the furies should wait, if not on John, may indeed well be questioned. We seem to trace his gradual depravation in his history. The fair boy, his father's darling, who lets his courtiers pull the beards of his Irish lords, in the very wantonness of youthful arrogance, and bandies rough jokes with Giraldus Cambrensis, grows up reckless of all self-restraint, of all honorable sentiment, false to his father, false to his brother, false to his associates in treason, casting off the wife who has made his fortunes, slaying the nephew whom he has sworn to spare. He has all the lower talent of his family, is a pleasant boon companion, fond of