A. D. 1215.

MAGNA CHARTA.

141

great superiority of their force, they issued proclamations requiring the other barons to join them. The king was left at Odiham in Hampshire, with a poor retinue of only seven knights; and after trying several expedients to elude the blow, he found himself at last obliged to submit at discretion.

§ 8. A conference between the king and the barons was appointed at Runnymede, between Windsor and Staines, a place which has ever since been celebrated on account of this great event. The two parties encamped apart, like open enemies, the barons on the field of Runnymede, the king on a little shady island on the Buckinghamshire side of the river; and, after a debate of a few days, the king, with a facility somewhat suspicious, signed and sealed the charter which was required of him (19th June, 1215). This famous deed, commonly called the MAGNA CHARTA, or GREAT CHARTER, either granted or secured very important liberties and privileges to every order of men in the kingdom-to the clergy, to the barons, and to the people. The privileges granted to the clergy in the preceding February are confirmed by the Great Charter, and have been already enumerated. The barons were relieved from the chief grievances to which they had been subject by the crown. The "reliefs" of heirs of the tenants in chief, succeeding to an inheritance, were limited to a certain sum, according to the rank of the tenant; the guardians in chivalry were restrained from wasting the lands of their wards; heirs were to be married without disparagement, and widows secured from compulsory marriages. The next clause was still more important. It enacted that no "scutage" or "aid" should be imposed without the consent of the great council of the kingdom, except in the three feudal cases of the king's ransom, the knighting of his eldest son, and the marriage of his eldest daughter; and it provided that the prelates, earls, and greater barons should be summoned to this great council, each by a particular writ, and all other tenants in chief by a general summons of the sheriffs. All the privileges and immunities granted to the tenants in chief were extended to the inferior vassals. The franchises of the city of London, and of all other cities and boroughs, were declared inviolable; and aids in like manner were not to be required of them, except by the consent of the great council. One weight and one measure were extended throughout the kingdom. The freedom of commerce was granted to alien merchants. The Court of Common Pleas was to be stationary, instead of following the king's person. But "the essential clauses" of Magna Charta, as Mr. Hallam has well observed, are those "which protect the personal liberty and property of all freemen, by giving security from arbitrary imprisonment and arbitrary spoliation." No FREEMAN SHALL

*

BE TAKEN OR IMPRISONED, OR BE DISSEISED OF HIS FREEHOLD, OR LIBERTIES, OR FREE CUSTOMS, OR BE OUTLAWED, OR EXILED, OR ANY OTHERWISE DESTROYED; NOR WILL WE PASS UPON HIM, NOR SEND UPON HIM, BUT BY LAWFUL JUDGMENT OF HIS PEERS, OR BY THE LAW OF THE LAND. WE WILL SELL TO NO MAN, WE WILL NOT DENY OR DELAY TO ANY MAN, JUSTICE OR RIGHT. "It is obvious," adds Mr. Hallam, "that these words, interpreted by any honest court of law, convey an ample security for the two main rights of civil society. From the era therefore of King John's charter it must have been a clear principle of our Constitution that no man can be detained in prison without trial. Whether courts of justice framed the writ of Habeas Corpus in conformity to the spirit of this clause, or found it already in their register, it became from that era the right of every subject to demand it. That writ, rendered more actively remedial by the statute of Charles II., but founded upon the broad basis of Magna Charta, is the principal bulwark of English liberty; and if ever temporary circumstances, or the doubtful plea of political necessity, shall lead men to look on its denial with apathy, the most distinguishing characteristic of our Constitution will be effaced."†

Other clauses of the charter protected freemen and even villeins from excessive fines. The latter were not to be deprived of their carts, plows, and implements of husbandry.‡

The barons obliged the king to agree that London should remain in their hands, and the tower be consigned to the custody of the primate, till the 15th of August ensuing, or till the execution of the several articles of the Great Charter. The better to insure the same end, he allowed them to choose five-and-twenty members from their own body, as conservators of the public liberties; and no bounds were set to the authority of these men either in extent or duration. All men throughout the kingdom were bound, under the penalty of confiscation, to swear obedience to them; and the freeholders of each county were to choose twelve knights, who were to make report of such evil customs as required redress, conformably to the tenor of the Great Charter.

John seemed to submit passively to all these regulations, however injurious to majesty; but he only dissembled till he should find a favorable opportunity for annulling all his concessions, and he was determined, at all hazards, to throw off so ignominious a

*These are the words of the 4th chapter of Henry III.'s charter, which is the existing law. They differ only slightly from those in John's charter. + Middle Ages, vol. ii., p. 324.

John's charter is printed in the 1st volume of Rymer's Fœdera, and other places. Respecting the subsequent confirmations of the charter, see Notes and Illustrations (B).

A.D. 1216.

CIVIL WARS.

143

slavery. He secretly sent abroad his emissaries to enlist foreign soldiers, and he dispatched a messenger to Rome, in order to lay before the Pope the Great Charter, which he had been compelled to sign, and to complain, before that tribunal, of the violence which had been imposed upon him. Innocent, considering himself as feudal lord of the kingdom, was incensed at the temerity of the barons, and issued a bull, in which he annulled and abrogated the whole charter, as unjust in itself, as obtained by compulsion, and as derogatory to the dignity of the apostolic see.

§ 9. The king, as his foreign forces arrived along with this bull, now ventured to take off the mask; and, under sanction of the Pope's decree, recalled all the liberties which he had granted to his subjects, and which he had solemnly sworn to observe. The barons, after obtaining the Great Charter, seem to have been lulled into a fatal security; the king was, from the first, master of the field; and immediately laid siege to the castle of Rochester, which was obstinately defended by William de Albiney, at the head of 140 knights with their retainers, but was at last reduced by famine. The captivity of William de Albiney, the best officer among the confederated barons, was an irreparable loss to their cause, and no regular opposition was thenceforth made to the progress of the royal arms. The ravenous and barbarous mercenaries, incited by a cruel and enraged prince, were let loose against the estates, tenants, manors, houses, parks of the barons, and spread devastation over the face of the kingdom. The king, marching through the whole extent of England, from Dover to Berwick, laid the provinces waste on each side of him, and considered every state, which was not his immediate property, as entirely hostile, and the object of military execution.

The barons, reduced to this desperate extremity, and menaced with the total loss of their liberties, their properties, and their lives, employed a remedy no less desperate; and making applications to the court of France, they offered to acknowledge Louis, the eldest son of Philip, for their sovereign, on condition that he would afford them protection from the violence of their enraged prince. Philip was strongly tempted to lay hold on the rich prize which was offered to him; and having exacted from the barons 25 hostages of the most noble birth in the kingdom, he sent over an army with Louis himself at its head (1216). The king was assembling a considerable army, with a view of fighting one great battle for his crown; but passing from Lynn to Lincolnshire his road lay along the sea-shore, which was overflowed at high water, and, not choosing the proper time for his journey, he lost in the inundation all his carriages, treasure, baggage, and regalia. The affliction for this disaster, and vexation from the distracted state

of his affairs, increased the sickness under which he then labored; and, though he reached the castle of Newark, he was obliged to halt there, and his distemper soon after put an end to his life, 17th October, 1216, in the 49th year of his age, and 18th of his reign, and freed the nation from the dangers to which it was equally exposed by his success or by his misfortunes.

The character of this prince is nothing but a complication of vices, equally mean and odious, ruinous to himself, and destructive to his people. Cowardice, inactivity, folly, levity, licentiousness, ingratitude, treachery, tyranny, and cruelty; all these qualities appear too evidently in the several incidents of his life to give us room to suspect that the disagreeable picture has been anywise overcharged by the prejudices of the ancient historians. It is hard to say whether his conduct to his father, his brother, his nephew, or his subjects was most culpable; or whether his crimes, in these respects, were not even exceeded by the baseness which appeared in his transactions with the King of France, the Pope, and the barons. His European dominions, when they devolved to him by the death of his brother, were more extensive than have ever, since his time, been ruled by an English monarch; but he first lost, by his misconduct, the flourishing provinces in France, the ancient patrimony of his family; he subjected his kingdom to a shameful vassalage under the see of Rome; he saw the prerogatives of his crown diminished by law, and still more reduced by faction; and he died at last when in danger of being totally expelled by a foreign power, and of either ending his life miserably in prison, or seeking shelter as a fugitive from the pursuit of his enemies.

It was this king who, in the year 1215, first gave by charter, to the city of London, the right of electing, annually, a mayor out of their own body, an office which was till now held for life. He gave the city also power to elect and remove its sheriffs at pleasure, and its common councilmen annually. London Bridge was finished in this reign. The former bridge was of wood. Maud, the empress, was the first that built a stone bridge in England.

§ 10. HENRY III., 1216-1272.-The Earl of Pembroke, who, at the time of John's death, was Marshal of England, was, by his office, at the head of the armies, and consequently, during a state of civil wars and convulsions, at the head of the government; and it happened fortunately for the young monarch and for the nation that the power could not have been intrusted into more able and more faithful hands. He immediately carried young Prince Henry, now 9 years of age, to Gloucester, where the ceremony of coronation was performed (Oct. 28, 1216). As the concurrence of the papal authority was requisite to support the tottering throne,

A.D. 1218.

GENERAL PACIFICATION.

145

Henry was obliged to swear fealty to the Pope, and renew that homage to which his father had already subjected the kingdom; and, in order to enlarge the authority of Pembroke, and give him a more regular and legal title to it, a general council of the barons was soon after summoned at Bristol, where that nobleman was chosen protector of the realm.

Henry III. From his Tomb in Westminster Abbey.

Pembroke, by renewing and confirming the Great Charter with some alterations, gave much satisfaction and security to the nation in general. He also wrote letters, in the king's name, to all the malcontent barons, most of whom began secretly to negotiate with him, and many of them openly returned to their duty. Louis soon found that the death of John had, contrary to his expectations, given an incurable wound to his cause, and that every English nobleman was plainly watching for an opportunity of returning to his allegiance. The French army was totally defeated at Lincoln, and driven from that city. A French fleet, bringing over a strong re-enforcement, were attacked by the English, and were routed with considerable loss. Louis, whose cause was now totally desperate, concluded a peace with Pembroke, and promised to evacuate the kingdom. Thus was happily ended a civil war which seemed to be founded on the most incurable hatred and jealousy, and had threatened the kingdom with the most fatal consequences.

§ 11. The Earl of Pembroke did not long survive the pacifica tion, which had been chiefly owing to his wisdom and valor, and

G