Charter. Though the Pope had now taken off the interdict, and become the patron of John, because John had made over England for ever to the Church of Rome, yet Langton, in his own immitigable resentment, still pursued him. The barons, bold but illiterate men, were as wax in his hands. They had lately joined altogether in the infamous act of making over this country for ever to a foreign power-the Pope and they were now as ready to join Langton in his determination to humble John. The Pope had now declared for him, but the people hated him. On the 20th of November, 1214, they assembled at St. Edmundsbury, that being the Saint's day, and swore on the high altar, that if the king refused the rights they claimed, they would make war on him. On the feast of Epiphany, they presented themselves before him in London, and made their demands. At Easter they met in arms at Stamford, followed by two thousand knights, and a host of retainers, and marching towards Oxford, where John lay, again demanded a charter. Not receiving a satisfactory answer, they proclaimed themselves the army of God and the Holy Church, and presented themselves before the castle of Northampton.

But it was no longer king or barons who could decide the fate of the nation, The people were already become of such importance, that the decision lay with them. John was the first in his meanness to appeal to them. Ruthlessly as he had fleeced them, he now courted and flattered them, and ordered all the freemen to assemble in his behalf against the rebellious barons. The barons assaulted the castle of Northampton, and could make no impression. After fifteen days they raised the siege, and retired to Bedford, dispirited and dejected. Their first martial enterprise was an utter failure. THEY SAW THAT WITHOUT THE PEOPLE THEY COULD DO NOTHING. The people had not yet declared themselves for either side; and for whichever party they did decide, there the victory would lie. But there could not long be any doubt which party the people of England would embrace it would be that of liberty. The men of Bedford flung open their gates to the barons; and almost at the same moment the citizens of London declared for them too. The question was at once decided. The barons were filled with exultation; they marched rapidly to London, where they were received with open arms, and the tyrant quailed before this demonstration. He sent messengers promising to grant all just rights and liberties, and Runnymede was appointed for the place of their meeting for this great purpose, on the 15th of June.

These were the circumstances which had led the barons to Runnymede. Church, barons, people, all were combined to force

a tyrant to submission, but the PEOPLE had been the conquering and deciding power, and the barons did but appear as their representatives and warriors. Without the people they were and had felt themselves nothing. Before this power the tyrant quailed, and signed Magna Charta.*

But though it was SIGNED, it was not won. The slippery villain, John, had no intention, at the very moment that he put his hand to it, of ever observing it. He immediately treated it with contempt, and it was thus, in reality, of no further value than a bit of waste paper. It was of no greater worth than the various charters which the nation already possessed. Because the tyrant violated these, they had been compelled to arm against him; and now he contemned and violated both those and this, Το become the law of the land, its title must be fought out. Ink was not strong enough: it must be signed in blood. The monarch must be forced not only to sign, but to respect it.

And who fought this out? Who triumphantly compelled the respect and obedience to the Great Charter? At every stage, and with unwavering prowess and patriotism-THE PEOPLE!

John, to put down the barons, called a fresh swarm of mercenaries from abroad. These Poictavins, Flemings, Brabanters, Gascons, Normans, and others, were but a fresh flight of those locusts, of which the barons themselves were the descendants: on all occasions, and under all kings, they had been brought over to subdue the liberties, and fatten on the lands of the people. Before these the barons could not stand. John raged from end to end of the kingdom, as we have observed, with his Manleon the Bloody, Falco without Bowels, Walter Buch the Murderer, Sottim the Merciless, and Godeschal the Iron-hearted. Castles and towers fell before him; all was plunder, rapine, and horror. John drove the King of Scots, whom the barons had engaged to make a descent in their favour, back to the very gates of Edinburgh; and, had it not been for the citizens of London, the country and cause must have been lost.

London stood firm; and there the barons took shelter. The Pope laid the city under an interdict; but in its noble patriotism, it set the ban at defiance; the citizens protected the barons, kept open the churches, rang their bells merrily, and celebrated their Christmas with unusual gaiety and festivity.

But though the Londoners lost not heart, the barons did: they could not bear the sight of their estates in the hands of the mercenaries; but, as they had before so complacently made over England to the Pope, they now as facilely made it over to France :

*Matthew Paris.

they offered the crown of England to Louis, the son and heir of Philip the French king, on condition that he brought an army to rescue them and their estates from the tyrant against whom they had risen, but with whom they were unable to cope. This was a fatal, and most un-English measure, which, had it succeeded, would eventually have reduced this country to a mere province of France. True patriots, rather than resort to so disgraceful a means, would have fought and fallen, or fought again, like Alfred, hand to hand with the people, till God and their swords had awarded to their prowess a late, perhaps, but a glorious victory. This was a coward act; it did not and could not succeed though the barons and knights flew to the French standard, those nobles who came with John deserting him to fly to it, the people looked on the whole with true English suspicion and repugnance, and, during the remainder of John's reign, the united power of the French and the barons could not prevail against him. Louis confirmed the popular suspicion by beginning, as the Normans had done before, to seize castles and give them to his followers: had he succeeded, there would have been a French Conquest, as there had been a Norman Conquest. One of his followers too, the Marquis de Melun, divulged on his death-bed the ominous secret, that Louis had resolved, in case of his complete success, to destroy the present nobility, as William had destroyed the Saxon, and supply their place with French.

The barons, therefore, instead of conquering the charter, so far as it lay with them, had ruined, by their pusillanimous and un-English scheme, the kingdom for ever. But the people never lost heart: John died, and they resolved to set Henry, his son, on the throne, and drive out the French.

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 Scots, and in the west by the Prince of Wales; the king was but a boy of ten years old, and of course he was made, by the good regent Pembroke, a striking example to his class, and therefore worthy of immortal memory, to promise charters or anything. A civil war was now become the consequence of the rash act of the barons; they and the French stood arrayed against the prince and the people. Pembroke, with a fellow-feeling for his own class, was disposed to delay and to make truces, so as to draw the barons from Louis; but the people cared for neither truce nor Frenchmen. The sailors, under the brave Hugh 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

parts, 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: on his return, the brave sailors cut off and captured many of his ships; the bowmen drove the French army out of London, and the mariners of de Burgh completed the business by defeating, capturing, and destroying the whole French fleet, at the mouth of the Thames, with the exception of fifteen vessels. Henry was set firmly on the throne; the charter was made the law of the land; and this was done from first to last by the patriotic, unswerving, and unflinching people; the barons, indeed, attending the signing of the charter: but the people fought out its establishment, and that, after the signing, in opposition to the barons themselves. The Great Charter is, therefore, wholly and solely the work of the people of England; and the people should ever reflect with pride that it was those of their own order their true ancestors-the brave bowmen whose descendants won the battles of Cressy, Poictiers, and Agincourt-the brave mariners, whose sons have made the universal ocean the home and the field of England's glory, who especially fought out and established for them the. charter of their liberties.*

This charter was now not signed by the king before the barons, but was signed and ratified before the parliament of the realm, with the additional charter of the forest. And here, indeed, it was seen by the further and most important concessions made, what was the real power which had achieved the charter. 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; a severe blow to the baronial power itself. All the forests which had been inclosed since the reign of Henry II. were thrown open, and the deadly forest laws deprived of their bloody and capital power and reduced to mildness. This was in itself a noble, popular victory, and pregnant with vast advantages to the whole nation.

Nor was it here that the exertions of the people in defence of the charter ceased. In this reign we have certain evidence that they were a component part of parliament; the representatives of burghs and cities, as well as knights of the shire, being expressly mentioned in the parliament of 1265; and on all occasions they stoutly defended this great work of their hands, this great bulwark of their liberties. Long after the feeble Henry III.

* Rymer; Matt, Paris; Carte.

was in his grave, and his valiant son, Edward I., flushed with the glory of his victories in France, Scotland, and Wales, and in the height of his popularity, attempted, by the addition of a new clause to the Great Charter, to undermine its very foundations, and when the nobles and the clergy had demurred and threatened in vain-when the clergy had succumbed, and the nobles had retired sullenly to their estates-the brave citizens of London withstood him to his face, and struck effectual terror into his iron soul. "He thought," says the historian, “that he could delude the plain citizens. He ordered the sheriff of London to call a public meeting, and read the new confirmation of the charters. The citizens met in St. Paul's Churchyard, and listened with anxious ears. At every clause, except the last, they gave many blessings to the king for his noble grants; but when that last clause was read, the London burghers understood it as well as the noble lords had done, and they cursed as loud and as fast as they had blessed before. Edward took warning; he summoned the parliament to meet shortly again, and then he struck out the detested clause, and granted all that was asked of him in the forms prescribed."

The voice of the mass was heard above the voice of nobles and clergy; the lion-king of many victories quailed before it ; and Magna Charta stood fixed for ever-THE WORK AND WILL OF THE PEOPLE.

CHAPTER V.

ORIGIN AND SUCCESSIVE PHASES OF ARISTOCRAFT.

"Sirs, ye know that by this craft we have our wealth."

THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES, Chap. xix. 25,

THE grand characteristic of an aristocracy, all the world over, ever has been, and still is, and ever will be, self-aggrandisement. This aggrandisement they will build up at the expense of any power or class that may be within their reach; the crown, the people, neighbouring nations-it matters not who or what-so that plunder is to be obtained. Here, indeed, lies the grand source of all the horrible wars which have made the world a pool of blood. This class must reap wealth and martial renown,

* Brady; Hemingford; Knighton; Hallam's Middle Ages.