Administration of Richard's

four successive Justiciars.

(i.) Longchamp:

King's demand for an aid of three hundred knights, each to receive three shillings a day, and to serve with him for a year against Philip of France, the two bishops alone had the courage to refuse; alleging that the lands of their sees were liable for military service within the kingdom only and not abroad.1 The opposition was successful; the King's demand was withdrawn: and shortly afterwards the justiciar resigned.

During the all but continuous absence of Richard, the administration of the kingdom was carried on by four successive justiciars who acted as viceroys. (1) William Longchamp, Bishop of Ely, a Norman of [servile] birth, was both justiciar and chancellor. As a parvenu he excited the jealousy of the barons, and by his vigorous assertion of the royal rights raised up a strong opposition headed by Earl John, who was ever plotting against his brother's His deposi- government. The struggle ended in the deposition of Longchamp from the justiciarship by a Great Council of the bishops, earls, and barons of England, and the citizens of London, assembled at St. Paul's by Earl John, and apparently acting in concert with William of Coutances, archbishop of Rouen, whom the King had sent over from Messina some months previously with a secret appointment to the office of justiciar, to be produced only if cir

tion A. D.

1191.

1 'Scio equidem,' said St. Hugh of Lincoln, ad militare servitium domino regi, sed in hac terra solummodo, exhibendum, Lincolniensem ecclesiam teneri; extra metas vero Angliae nil tale ab ea deberi. Unde mihi consultius arbitror ad natale solum repedare, et eremum more solito incolere, quam hic pontificatum gerere et ecclesiam mihi commissam, antiquas immunitates perdendo, insolitis angariis subjugare.'—Vita Magna S. Hugonis, p. 248; Select Chart. 247.

2 This event is a landmark of constitutional history: for the second time a constitutional opposition to a royal demand for money is made, and made successfully. It would perhaps be too great an anticipation of modern usages to suppose that the resignation of the minister was caused by his defeat. Stubbs, Const. Hist. i. 509. The first case of any opposition to the king's will in the matter of taxation which is recorded in our national history,' was the refusal of Becket to agree to Henry II.'s wishes with reference to the Danegeld in 1163. This was the commencement of the quarrel between the King and the Archbishop; and as 'Danegeld appears for the last time under that name in the accounts of the year,' the opposition 'would seem to have been, formally at least, successful.'-Ibid. 463.

cumstances should require it. This proceeding has been characterised as 'the earliest authority for a leading principle of our constitution, the responsibility of ministers to Parliament.' But this view seems to invest the action of the council of St. Paul's with too great importance. It can at most be regarded as a rude anticipation, by an irregularly constituted assembly acting as if it represented the nation, of that constitutional control over ministers of the crown which the regular National Council was later on to claim and obtain. (2) The assembly which deposed Long- (ii.) William champ recognised the archbishop of Rouen as his successor. tances. At the close of the year 1193, the archbishop of Rouen gave place to (3) Hubert Walter, archbishop of Canterbury, (iii.) Hubert and a nephew of the celebrated Ranulf de Glanvill; and on the resignation of Hubert Walter in 1198, Geoffrey Fitz-Peter, Earl of Essex, the fourth and last of Richard's (iv.) Geoffrey justiciars, entered into office.

of Cou

Walter.

Fitz-Peter.

Under the rule of each of the justiciars, but more especially of Hubert Walter and his successor, Geoffrey FitzPeter, the administrative system established by Henry II. was maintained and considerably developed. By the extensive application of the principle of representation to the assessment of the taxes on both real and personal property, the people were gradually educated for self-government. In the year 1194, the principle of election in the appoint- Election of ment of county officers was introduced. Coroners, three county knights and a clergyman, were ordered to be elected in every county, to hold pleas of the Crown. The advance Charters made by the boroughs towards independence, through the boroughs. charters which, as a means of raising money, were extensively sold to them, is also an important feature of this reign. In some instances the privileges granted were assimilated to those of the citizens of London, which served

Coroners.

granted to

1 Bened. Abb. ii. 213, A.D. 1191; Select Chart. 244.

2 Hallam, Middle Ages, ii. [322].

3 'Praeterea in quolibet comitatu eligantur tres milites et unus clericus custodes placitorum coronae.'—Capitula placitorum Coronae Regis, cap. 20; Select Chart. 252.

Summary.

as a model for the provincial towns, and included the right of electing the town-reeve. On the occasion of Longchamp's deposition, in which, as we have seen, the citizens of London concurred, they secured a formal recognition, by the justiciar and barons, of their existence as a 'communa,' the exact meaning of which is not quite clear, but which was certainly a near approach to what is understood by a corporation.' In connexion, doubtless, with this establishment of the communa, the mayor now appears for the first time.

2

On the whole, the reign of Richard, through no merit. however of his own, was beneficial to the liberties of the people. They became accustomed to the rule of law as opposed to the rule of force. Even the unexampled taxation was levied with the appearance of legal formality. The immense sums raised are a proof that the kingdom had rapidly advanced in wealth during the preceding reign. The baronage, which had been severely repressed under Henry II., became at once more orderly and less inclined than formerly to submit to the caprice of the sovereign, to whose personal interference they had become unaccustomed. The fusion of the two races, nearly accomplished under Henry II., was silently worked out under Richard; and in the following reign we shall find the barons and people claiming for themselves against the Crown the common liberties of Englishmen.

1 Has praedictas consuetudines eis concessimus, et omnes alias libertates et liberas consuetudines quas habuerunt vel habent cives nostri Londoniarum quando meliores vel liberiores habuerint, secundum libertates Londoniarum et leges civitatis Lincolniae. .. Et cives Lincolniae faciant praepositum quem voluerint de se per annum, qui sit idoneus nobis et eis.-From Charter of Richard I. to Lincoln, A. D. 1194, in Rymer, i. 52, and Select Chart. 258.

2 Bened. Abb. ii. 213, A.D. 1191; Select Chart. 244. No boroughs were incorporated as municipal corporations, in the modern sense of the term, till the reign of Henry VI.-Merewether & Stephens on Boroughs, vol. i., Introd. [Communa is another form of Communitas, and is the origin of the French word Commune. Guizot translates Communitas by Commune, in his Civilisation en France.-ED.]

CHAPTER IV.

MAGNA CHARTA.

mental com

between the Crown and

Charta,

THREE great political documents, in the nature of funda- The three mental compacts between the Crown and the Nation, stand great fundaout as prominent landmarks in English constitutional his- pacts tory. Magna Charta, the Petition of Right, and the Bill of Rights, constitute, in the words of Lord Chatham, 'the the Nation. Bible of the English Constitution.' In each of these docu- Magna ments, whether it be of the 13th or of the 17th century, is Petition of observable the common characteristic of professing to in- Right, Bill of Rights. troduce nothing new. Each professed to assert rights and liberties which were already old, and sought to redress griev ances which were for the most part themselves innovations upon the ancient liberties of the people. In its practical combination of conservative instincts with liberal aspirations, in its power of progressive development and selfadaptation to the changing political and social wants of each successive generation, have always lain the peculiar excellence, and at the same time the surest safeguard, of our Constitution.1

The Great Charter of Liberties was the outcome of a The Great movement of all the freemen of the realm, led by their Charter, an

By far the greatest portions of the written or statute laws of England consist of the declaration, the re-assertion, repetition, or the re-enactment, of some older law or laws, either customary or written, with additions or modifications. The new building has been raised upon the old ground-work: the institutions of one age have always been modelled and formed from those of the preceding, and their lineal descent has never been interrupted or disturbed.'-Palgrave, Eng. Commonwealth, i. 6.

act of the whole people under the

of the

barons.

Unselfishness of the barons.

leadership natural leaders the barons. Far from being a 'mere piece of class legislation,' extorted by the barons alone for their own special interests, it is in itself a noble and remarkable proof of the sympathy and union then existing between the aristocracy and all classes of the commonalty. At least one-third of its provisions relate to promises and guarantees on behalf of the people in general, as contradistinguished from the baronage. But one fact is specially significant. The important and comprehensive clause (60), by which the customs and liberties granted to the King's tenants-inchief, are expressly extended to every sub-tenant in the kingdom, did not, like the similar provision in the Charter of Henry I., emanate from the King, but was spontaneously included by the barons themselves in the articles presented to John as a summary of their demands.2

The Charter a treaty of peace

between the

King and his people in

The eminently inoderate, practical, and conservative character of the barons' demands is especially noticeable. Magna Charta was in fact a treaty of peace between the King and his people in arms; yet their ancient rights and liberties, the acknowledgment of which had been extorted from the King, were expressed to flow from his grant. There is nothing theoretical or revolutionary in the Charrate, practi- ter no declaration of abstract principles of government

arms.

Its mode

cal and conservative character.

1 [Stubbs, Const. Hist. i. 532, calls the Great Charter the first great public act of the nation after it has realised its own identity.' M. Glasson, Hist. du Dr. et des Inst. de l'Angl., iii. 52, says, 'la Grande Charte est un Contrat, mais qui se rapproche du traité passé entre deux nations,' and M. Boutmy, Les Sources de la Const. Angl., in Nouv. Rev. Hist. de Droit Fr. et Etr., for 1878, calls it a 'pacte;' not exactly a treaty (traité), because not made between two sovereign powers or two nations; nor yet a statute (loi), because then it would bear the note of irregularity or force; but a compromise (compromis ou pacte). In so far as it resembles anything in French history, M. Boutmy likens it to the Treaty of Amboise, the Peace of St. Germain, and all those conventions during the French wars of religion, which gave guarantees to the Huguenot party, and almost made of them a nation within the nation.'-ED.]

2 Articles of the Barons, c. 48, Blackstone's Charters, pp. 1–9, and Select Chart. p. 286; Magna Charta, c. 60, infra, p. 127; Stubbs, Const. Hist. i. 530. [M. Glasson (ubi supra) draws attention to the strongly practical character of Magna Charta, and says that every article gives proof of an intimate acquaintance with the administration of the State, and with the evils of which the nation had to complain, as well as with the remedies which needed to be applied.-ED.]