8/15/12
www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/17386/pg17386.html
183. The Rise of the Free Towns.
Of al these devices for raising money, that of seling charters to towns had the most important results. From the
time of the Norman Conquest the large towns of England, with few exceptions, were considered part of the
King's property; the smaler places generaly belonged to the great barons.
The citizens of these towns were obliged to pay rent and taxes of various kinds to the King or lord who owned
them. These dues were colected by an officer appointed by the King or lord (usualy the sheriff), who was
bound to obtain a certain sum, whatever more he could get being his own profit. For this reason it was for his
interest to exact from every citizen the uttermost penny. London, as we have seen, had secured a considerable
degree of liberty through the charter granted to it by Wiliam the Conqueror (S107). Every town was now
anxious to obtain a similar charter.
The three great objects which the citizens of the towns sought were:
(1) To get the right of paying their taxes directly to the King. (2) To elect their own magistrates. (3) To
administer justice in their own courts in accordance with laws made by themselves.
The only way to gain these privileges was to pay for them. Many of the towns were rich, and, if the King or lord
needed money, they bargained with him for the favors they desired. When the agreement was made, it was
drawn up in Latin and stamped with the King's seal (S154). Then the citizens took it home in triumph and locked
it up as the safeguard of their liberties, or at least of some part of them.
Thus, the people of Leicester, in the next reign, purchased from the Earl of Leicester, their feudal lord, the right
to decide their own disputes. For this they payed a yearly tax of threepence on every house having a gable on the
main street. These concessions may seem smal, but they prepared the way for greater ones.
What was stil more important, these charters educated the citizens of the day in a knowledge of self-
government. The tradesmen and shopkeepers of these towns did much to preserve free speech and equal justice.
Richard granted a large number of these town charters, and thus unintentionaly made himself a benefactor to the
nation.[1]
[1] Rise of Free Towns: By 1216 the most advanced of the English towns had become to a very considerable
extent self-governing. See W. Stubbs's "Constitutional History of England."
184. Failure of the Third Crusade.
The object of the Third Crusade (S182) was to drive the Mohammedans from Jerusalem. In this it failed.
Richard got as near Jerusalem as the Mount of Olives. When he had climbed to the top, he was told that he
could have a ful view of the place; but he covered his face with his mantle, saying, "Blessed Lord, let me not see thy holy city, since I may not deliver it from the hands of thine enemies!"
185. Richard taken Prisoner; his Ransom (1194).
On his way home the King fel into the hands of the German Emperor, who held him captive. His brother John
(S177), who had remained in England, plotted with Philip of France to keep Richard in prison while he got
possession of the throne. It is not certainly known how the news of Richard's captivity reached England. One
account relates that it was carried by Blondel, a minstrel who had accompanied the King to Palestine. He, it is
www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/17386/pg17386.html
66/333
8/15/12
www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/17386/pg17386.html
said, wandered through Germany in search of his master, singing a song, which he and Richard had composed
together, at every castle he came to. One day, as he was thus singing at the foot of a tower, he heard the wel-
known voice of the King take up the next verse in reply.
Finaly, Richard regained his liberty (1194), but to do it he had to raise an enormous ransom. Every Englishman,
it was said, was obliged to give a fourth of his personal property, and the priests were forced to strip the
churches of their jewels and silver plate.
When the King of France heard that the ransom money had at length been raised, he wrote to John, teling him
that his brother was free. "Look out for yourself," said he; "the devil has broken loose." Richard generously pardoned his treacherous brother; and when the King was kiled in a war in France (1199) John gained the
throne he coveted, but gained it only to disgrace it.
186. Purpose of the Crusades.
Up to the time of the Crusades, the English, when they entered upon Continental wars, had been actuated either
by ambition for military glory or desire for conquest. But they undertook the Crusades from motives of religious
enthusiasm.
Those who engaged in them fought for an idea. They considered themselves soldiers of the cross. Moved by this
feeling, "al Christian believers seemed redy to precipitate themselves in one united body upon Asia" (S182).
Thus the Crusades were "the first European event."[1] They gave men something noble to battle for, not only
outside their country, but outside their own selfish interests.
[1] Guizot's "History of Civilization."
Richard, as we have seen, was the first English King who took part in them. Before that period England had
stood aloof,—"a world by itself." The country was engaged in its own affairs or in its contests with France.
Richard's expedition to the Holy Land brought England into the main current of history, so that it was now
moved by the same feeling which animated the Continent.
187. The Results of the Crusades: Educational, Social, Political.
From a purely military point of view, the Crusades ended in disastrous failure, for they left the Mohammedans in
absolute possession of the Holy Land. Although this is the twentieth century since the birth of Christ, the
Mohammedans stil continue in that possession. But in spite of their failure these wars brought great good to
England. In many respects the civilization of the East was far in advance of the West. One result of the Crusades
was to open the eyes of Europe to this fact. When Richard and his folowers set out, they looked upon the
Mohammedans as barbarians; before they returned, many were ready to acknowledge that the barbarians were
chiefly among themselves.
At that time England had few Latin and no Greek scholars. The Saracens or Mohammedans, however, had long
been familiar with the classics, and had translated them into their own tongue. Not only did England gain its first
knowledge of the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle from Mohammedan teachers, but it also received from them
the elements of arithmetic, algebra, geometry, and astronomy.
This new knowledge gave a great impulse to education, and had a most important influence on the growth of the
universities of Cambridge and Oxford, though these institutions did not become prominent until more than a
www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/17386/pg17386.html
67/333
8/15/12
www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/17386/pg17386.html
century later.
Had these been the only results, they would stil, perhaps, have been worth al the blood and treasure spent by
the crusaders in their vain attempts to recover the permanent possession of the sepulcher of Christ; but these
were by no means al. The Crusades brought about a social and political revolution. They conferred benefits and
removed evils. When they began, the greater part of the inhabitants of western Europe, including England, were
chained to the soil (S150). They had neither freedom, property, nor knowledge.
There were in fact but three classes, who realy deserved the name of citizens and freemen; these were the
churchmen (comprising the clergy, monks, and other ecclesiastics), the nobles, and the inhabitants of certain
favored towns. The effect of the Crusades was to increase the number of this last class. We have seen that
Richard was compeled, by his need of money, to grant charters conferring local self-government on many towns
(SS182, 183). For a similar reason the great nobles often granted the same powers to towns which they
controled. The result was that their immense estates were broken up in some measure. It was from this period,
says the historian Gibbon, that the common people (living in these chartered towns) began to acquire political
rights, and, what is more, to defend them.
188. Summary.
We may say in closing that the central fact in Richard's reign was his embarking in the Crusades. From them,
directly or indirectly, England gained two important advantages: first, a greater degree of political liberty,
especialy in the case of the towns; secondly, a new intelectual and educational impulse.
John—1199-1216
189. John Lackland; the King's Quarrels.
When Henry II in dividing his realm left his youngest son, John, dependent on the generousity of his brothers, he
jestingly gave him the surname of "Lackland" (S171). The nickname continued to cling to him even after he had become King of England and had also secured Normandy and several adjacent provinces in France.
The reign of the new King was taken up mainly with three momentous quarrels: first, with France; next, with the
Pope; lastly, with the barons. By his quarrel with France he lost Normandy and the greater part of the adjoining
provinces, thus becoming in a new sense John Lackland. By his quarrel with the Pope he was humbled to the
earth. By his quarrel with the barons he was forced to grant England the Great Charter.
190. Murder of Prince Arthur.
Shortly after John's accession the nobles occupying a part of the English possessions in France expressed their
desire that John's nephew, Arthur, a boy of twelve, should become their ruler. John refused to grant their
request.
War, ensued, and Arthur fel into the hands of his uncle John, who imprisoned him in the castle of Rouen, the
capital of Normandy. A number of those who had been captured with the young prince were starved to death in
the dungeons of the same castle, and not long after Arthur himself mysteriously disappeared. Shakespeare
represents John as ordering the keeper of the castle to put out the lad's eyes, and then tels us that he was kiled
in an attempt to escape.[1] The general belief, however, was that the King murdered him.
www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/17386/pg17386.html
68/333
8/15/12
www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/17386/pg17386.html
[1] Shakespeare's "King John," Act IV, scenes i and ii.
191. John's Loss of Normandy (1204).
Philip, King of France, accused John of the crime, and ordered him as Duke of Normandy, and hence as his
feudal dependant (S86), to appear at Paris for trial. John refused. The court met, declared him a traitor, and
sentenced him to forfeit al his lands on the Continent.
John's late brother, Richard Coeur de Lion (S185), had built a famous stronghold on the Seine to hold Rouen
and Normandy. He named it "Saucy Castle." King Philip vowed in Richard's lifetime that he would make himself master of it. "I would take it," said the French King, "were its wals of iron." "I would hold it," retorted Richard,
"were its wals of butter." Richard made his word good, and kept the castle as long as he lived; but his successor, John, was of poorer and meaner stuff. He left his Norman nobles to carry on the war against Philip as best they
could. At last, after much territory had been lost, the English King made an attempt to regain it. But it was too
late, and "Saucy Castle" fel. Then the end speedily came. Philip seized al Normandy and folowed up the victory by depriving John of his entire possessions north of the river Loire. (See map facing p. 84.)
192. Good Results of the Loss of Normandy.
Thus after a union of nearly a hundred and forty years Normandy was finaly separated from England (S108).
From that time the Norman nobles were compeled to choose between the island of England and the Continent
for their home. Before that time the Norman's contempt for the Saxon was so great, that his most indignant
exclamation was, "Do you take me for an Englishman?"
Now, however, shut in by the sea, with the people he had hitherto oppressed and despised, the Norman came to
regard England as his country, and Englishmen as his countrymen. Thus the two races, who were closely akin to
each other in their origin (S126), found at last that they had common interests and common enemies,[1] and
henceforth they made the welfare of England their main thought.
[1] Macaulay's "England"; also W. Stubb's "Early Plantagenets," p. 136.
193. The King's Despotism.
Hitherto our sympathies have been mainly with the kings. We have watched them struggling against the lawless
nobles (S173), and every gain which they have made in power we have felt was so much won for the cause of
good government. But we are coming to a period when our sympathies wil be the other way. Henceforth the
welfare of the nation wil depend largely on the resistence of these very barons to the despotic encroachments of
the Crown.[2]
[2] Ransome's "Constitutional History of England."
194. Quarrel of the King with the Church (1208).
Shortly after his defeat in France (S191), John entered upon his second quarrel. Pope Innocent III had
commanded a delegation of the monks of Canterbury to choose Stephen Langton archbishop in place of a
person whom the King had compeled them to elect. When the news reached John, he forbade Langton's landing
in England, although it was his native country.
www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/17386/pg17386.html
69/333
8/15/12
www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/17386/pg17386.html
The Pope forthwith declared the kingdom under an interdict, or suspension of religious services. For two years
the churches were hung in mourning, the bels ceased to ring, the doors were shut fast. For two years the priests
denied the sacraments to the living and funeral prayers for the dead. At the end of that time the Pope, by a bul of
excommunication (S167), cut off the King as a withered branch from the Church. John laughed at the interdict,
and met the decree of excommunication with such cruel treatment of the priests that they fled terrified from the
lnd.
The Pope now took a third and final step; he deposed John and ordered Philip, King of France, to seize the
English Crown. Then John, knowing that he stood alone, made a virtue of necessity. He knelt at the feet of the
Pope's legate, or representative, accepted Stephen Langton as Archbishop of Canterbury, and promised to pay
a yearly tax to Rome of one thousand marks (about $64,000 in modern money) for permission to keep his
crown. The Pope was satisfied with the victory he had gained over his ignoble foe, and peace was made.
195. The Great Charter.
But peace in one direction did not mean peace in al. John's tyranny, brutality, and disregard of his subjects'
welfare had gone too far. He had refused the Church the right to fil its offices and enjoy its revenues. He had
extorted exhorbitant sums from the barons. He had violated the charters of London and other cities. He had
compeled merchants to pay large sums for the privilege of carrying on their business unmolested. He had
imprisoned men on false or frivolous charges, and refused to bring them to trial. He had unjustly claimed heavy
sums from vileins, or farm laborers (S113), and other poor men; and when they could not pay, had seized their
carts and tools, thus depriving them of their means of livelihood.
Those who had suffered these and greater wrongs were determined to have reformation, and to have it in the
form of a written charter or pledge bearing the King's seal. Stephen Langton, the new archbishop, was likewise
determined. He no sooner landed in England than he demanded of the King that he should swear to observe the
laws of Edward the Confessor (S65), a phrase[1] in which the whole of the national liberties was summed up.
[1] Not necessarily the laws made by that King, but rather the customs and rights enjoyed by the people during
his reign.
196. Preliminary Meeting at St. Albans (1213).
In the summer (1213) a council was held at St. Albans, near London, composed of representatives from al parts
of the kingdom. It was the first assembly of the kind on record. It convened to consider what claims should be
made on the King in the interest of the nobles, the clergy, and the people at large. A few weeks later they met
again, at St. Paul's in London.
The deliberations of the assembly took shape probably under Archbishop Langton's guiding hand. He had
obtained a copy of the charter granted by Henry I (S135). This was used as a model for drawing up a new one
of similar character, but in every respect fuler and stronger in its provisions.
197. Battle of Bouvines; Second Meeting of the Barons (1214).
John foolishly set out for the Continent, to fight the French at the same time that the English barons were
preparing to bring him to terms. He was defeated in the decisive battle of Bouvines, in the north of France, and
returned to England crestfalen (1214), and in no condition to resist demands at home. Late in the autumn the
www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/17386/pg17386.html
70/333
8/15/12
www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/17386/pg17386.html
barons met in the abbey church of Bury St. Edmunds, in Suffolk, under their leader, Robert Fitz-Walter, of
London. Advancing one by one up the church to the high altar, they solemnly swore that they would oblige John
to grant the new charter, or they would declare war against him.
198. The King grants the Charter, 1215.
At Easter (1215) the same barons, attended by two thousand armed knights, met the King at Oxford and made
known their demands. John tried to evade giving a direct answer. Seeing that was impossible, and finding that the
people of London were on the side of the barons, he yielded and requested them to name the day and place for
the ratification of the charter.
"Let the day be the 15th of June, the place Runnymede,"[1] was the reply. In accordance therewith, we read at the foot of the shriveled parchment preserved in the British Museum, "Given under our hand…in the meadow
caled Runnymede, between Windsor and Staines, on the 15th of June, in the seventeenth year of our reign."
[1] Runnymede: about twenty miles southwest of London, on the south bank of the Thames, in Surrey.
199. Terms and Value of the Charter, 1215; England leads in Constitutional Government.
This memorable document was henceforth known as the Magna Carta,[2] or the Great Charter,—a term used to
emphaticaly distinguish it from al previous and partial charters.
[2] Magna Carta: Carta is the speling in the medieval Latin of this and the preceding charters. (See the
Constitutional Documents in the Appendix, p. xxix.)
It stipulated that the folowing grievances should be redressed: First, those of the Church; secondly, those of the
barons and their vassals or tenants; thirdly, those of citizens and tradesmen; fourthly, those of freemen and vileins
or serfs (SS113, 150).
Such was the first agreement entered into between the King and al classes of his people. Of the sixty-three
articles which constitute it, the greater part, owing to the changes of time, are now obsolete; but three possess
imperishable value. These provide:
(1) That no free man shal be imprisoned or proceeded against except by his peers,[1] or the law of the land. (2)
That justice shal neither be sold, denied, nor delayed. (3) That al dues from the people to the King, unless
otherwise distinctly specified, shal be imposed only with the conselt of the National Council (S144).
This last provision "converted the power of taxation into the shield of liberty."[2]
[1] Peers (from Latin pares): equals; this clause secures a fair and open trial. [2] Sir J. Mackintosh's "History of England." This provision was dropped in the next reign (see W. Stubb's "Constitutional History of England"); but after the great civil war of the seventeenth century the principle it laid down was firmly reestablished.
Thus, for the first time, the interests of al classes were protected, and for the first time the English people appear in the constitutional history of the country as a united body. So highly was this charter esteemed, that in the
course of the next two centuries it was confirmed no less than thirty-seven times; and the very day that Charles II
entered London, after the civil wars of the seventeenth century, the House of Commons asked him to confirm it
again (1660). Magna Carta was the first great step in that development of constitutional government in which
www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/17386/pg17386.html
71/333
8/15/12
www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/17386/pg17386.html
England has taken the lead.
200. John's Efforts to break the Charter (1215).
But John had no sooner set his hand to this document than he determined to repudiate it. He hired bands of
soldiers on the Continent to come to his aid. The charter had been obtained by armed revolt; for this reason the
Pope opposed it. He suspended Archbishop Langton (S196), and threatened the barons with excommunication
(S167), if they persisted in enforcing the provisions of the charter.
201. The Barons invite Louis of France to aid them (1215).
In their desperation,—for the King's hired foreign soldiers were now ravaging the country,—the barons
dispatched a messenger to John's sworn enemy, Philip, King of France. They invited him to send over his son,
Prince Louis, to free them from tyranny, and become ruler of the kingdom. He came with al speed, and soon
made himself master of the southern counties.
202. King John's Death (1216).
John was the first sovereign who had styled himself, on his great seal, "King of England,"[1] thus formaly
claiming the actual ownership of the realm. He was now to find that the sovereign who has no place in his
subjects' hearts has smal hold of their possessions.
[1] The late Professor E. A. Freeman, in his "Norman Conquest," I, 85, note, says that though Richard Coeur de Lion had used this title in issuing charters, yet John was the first king who put this inscription on the great seal.
The rest of his ignominious reign was spent in war against the barons and Prince Louis of France. "They have
placed twenty-five kings over me!" he shouted, in his fury, referring to the twenty-five leading men who had been appointed to see that the Great Charter did not become a dead letter. But the twenty-five did their duty, and the
war was on.
In the midst of it John suddenly died. The old record said of him—and said rightly—that he was "a knight without
truth, a king without justice, a Christian without faith."[2] The Church returned good for evil, and permitted him to be buried in front of the high altar of Worcester cathedral.
[2] The late Professor W. Stubbs, of Oxford, says, in his "Early Plantagenets," p. 152: "John ended thus a life of ignominy in which he has no rival in the whole long list of our sovereigns….He was in every way the worst of the
whole list: the most vicious, the most profane, the most tyrannical, the most false, the most short-sighted, the
most unscrupulous." A more recent writer (Professor Charles Oman, of the University of Oxford), says of John,
"No man had a good word to say for him…; he was loathed by every one who knew him."
203. Summary.
John's reign may be regarded as a turning point in English history.
1. Through the loss of Normandy, the Norman nobility found it for their interest to make the welfare of England
and of the English race one with their own. Thus the two peoples became more and more united, until finaly al
differences ceased.
www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/17386/pg17386.html
72/333
8/15/12
www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/17386/pg17386.html
2. In demanding and obtainign the Great Charter, the Church and the nobility made common cause with al
classes of the people. That document represents the victory of the entire nation. We shal see that the next eighty
years wil be mainly taken up with the efforts of the nation to hold fast to what it had gained.
Henry III—1216-1272
204. Accession and Character.
John's eldest son, Henry, was crowned at the age of nine. During his long and feeble reign of fifty-six years
England's motto might wel have been the warning words of Scripture, "Woe to thee, O land, when thy king is a
child!" since a child he remained to the last; for if John's heart was of milstone, Henry's was of wax.
Dante in one of his poems, written perhaps not long after Henry's death, represents him as he sees him in
imagination just on the borderland of purgatory. The King is not in suffering, for as he has done no particular
good, so he has done no great harm. He appears "as a man of simple life, spending his time singing psalms in a
narrow valey."
That shows one side of his negative character; the other was his love of extravagance, vain display, and instability
of purpose. Much of the time he drifted about like a ship without compass or rudder.
205. Reissue of the Great Charter.
Louis, the French prince who had come to England in John's reign as an armed claimant to the throne (S201),
finding that both the barons and the Church preferred an English to a foreign king, now retired. During his
minority Henry's guardians twice reissued the Great Charter (S199): first, with the omission of the article which
reserved the power of taxation to the National Council (S199, No. 3); and, secondly, with an addition declaring
that no man should lose life or limb for hunting in the royal forests (S119).
On the last occasion the Council granted the King in return a fifteenth of their movable or personal property. This
tax reached a large class of people, like merchants in towns, who were not landholders. On this account it had a
decided influence in making them desire to have a voice in the National Council, or Parliament, as it began to be
caled in this re