1209. Anselm and of Thomas had never completely broken down. The church, so long the steadfast support of the royal authority against the baronage, was now changed from a faithful ally into a dangerous enemy. John remaining obdurate under the interdict for a whole year, Innocent proceeded to inflict upon The excom- him a still more serious punishment: in 1209 he was cut off munication, from the pale of the church by a sentence of excommunication, which, under the papal procedure, was the natural prelude to a sentence of deposition. Three years elapsed, however, before the pope resorted to the supreme and final exercise of his authority. During the interval many of the bishops fled from the kingdom, while those who remained appealed to Rome for protection for themselves and their clergy against the cruelties and oppressions to which they were subjected. In vain did Innocent seek to renew negotiations with John, who was now carrying on military expeditions in Wales and Ireland by means of the vast sums which the plunder of the church had placed at his disposal. Not until all attempts to renew negotiations had failed did Innocent take the final step. The deposi- In 1212 the bull of deposition was issued against John, absolving his subjects from their allegiance, and exhorting all Christian princes to unite in dethroning him.1 What gave alarming significance to the final sentence was the fact that its execution was specially committed by the pope to John's arch adversary, the king of France, who at once gathered a great host for the purpose of an invasion. These dangers from without were soon followed by a menace from within. The Welsh princes, who had just been forced into submission, again rose in rebellion.2 The universal discontent which prevailed throughout the host which John gathered for a fresh invasion of Wales revealed the fact that there was scarcely a man Defection upon whose loyalty the king could depend. The barons, too timid as yet to lead the nation in an open attack upon the crown, were conspiring in secret; some of them had even gone so far as to promise to go over to Philip upon his landing. tion, 1212. of the baronage. 1 M. Paris, vol. ii. p. 130. 8 When John discovered the con- 3 weeks he arrested some of the barons and seized their castles. Walter of Coventry, vol. ii. p. 207. Some of the nobles took refuge in France. - M. Paris, vol. ii. p. 128. mits to In his king oath of Thus menaced by conspiracies in his own ranks, John with consummate craft dealt a stunning blow to the adversaries combined against him by winning to his side as an ally the cohesive force by which they were united and directed. Behind Philip, the clergy, and the baronage stood the power of Rome; at the feet of that power John now sought deliverance from the hands of his enemies. On the 13th of May, John sub1213, he made an unqualified submission to Innocent, in which nocent, he agreed that Langton should be received as primate; that May, 1213. the exiles, clerical and lay, should return and be restored to their lands and offices; and that full restitution should be made to the clergy for the seizures to which they had been subjected. On the fulfilment of these terms and conditions the sentences of interdict and excommunication were to be revoked. But this was not all. On the 15th of May John Surrenders knelt before the legate Pandulf and surrendered his kingdom dom and to Innocent, to be held of him and his successors in the Ro- takes the man see at the annual rent of a thousand marks. John then fealty; took the oath of fealty to the pope in the form usual between lord and vassal.2 As the man of the pope, John was now entitled to his protection, and to a consequent revocation of the authority under which the French king was threatening to invade his dominions. Under these changed conditions the and is deFrench army was withdrawn to face another enemy, while from his Philip's dream of winning the English crown passed for the enemies. moment away. John's sudden and abject submission to Innocent, which entirely frustrated the plans of his enemies, was looked upon at the time as a complete settlement of all the difficulties in which he was involved. There is little or nothing in the contemporary accounts of the transaction to show that it excited anything like a feeling of national humiliation. It certainly was not without precedent. John's own father, Henry II., had become the feudatory of Alexander III., while his brother, the lion-hearted Richard, had i. 1 M. Paris, vol. ii. p. 135; Fœdera, 170. 2 M. Paris, vol. ii. p. 135. The charter placed by John in Pandulf's hands is in Rymer, Fadera, i. p. III. The homage is renewed to Nicholas, bishop of Tusculum, at London, on the 3d October. - Fœdera, i. p. 115. 8 Green, Hist. Eng. People, vol. i. p. 236. 4 See Lingard, vol. i. p. 417, note I, in which reference is made to a let ter written to the pope by Henry and preserved by his secretary, Peter of Blois. livered John's quarrel with the nobles. become the man of the emperor.1 The idea that the English nation thrilled with a sense of shame and degradation when John became the vassal of Innocent seems to have been the afterthought of a later time. The respite which John won from the attacks of his enemies by his sudden submission to the pope was only of a moment's duration. The defection of the baronage, which had crushed his hopes in the presence of Philip, still stood as a menace before him. The causes of this defection reached back to the very beginning of the reign. At his accession John had won the adhesion of the nobles by the promise that the demands made by them for the redress of grievances suffered in the preceding reign should be satisfied.2 The performance of this promise John had neglected; and when in 1201 the barons refused to follow him to Normandy until his pledge should be kept, he responded by seizing their castles and their children as hostages for their loyalty. The breach thus opened through John's faithlessness was widened and deepened in each succeeding year by the shameless pressure of taxation, by acts of wanton despotism in individual cases, and by an endless number of lustful assaults upon the honor Taxation of of the proudest of the baronial families. In the first year of the reign the scutage—the tax which specially affected the tenants-in-chivalry was increased from a pound to two marks on the knight's fee; in 1203 a seventh of the movable property of the barons was exacted;5 in 1204 an aid was taken from the knights; and in 1207 a thirteenth of movables from the whole country. And apart from the pressure of taxation which these demands illustrate, the baronage were constantly harassed by demands for military service in fruitless expeditions which were never carried out. In 1201, in 1202, in 1203, and in 1205 armies were assembled for the ostensible purpose of foreign service, and when the time for action came the king, either from caprice or mistrust, refused to fight; the baron age. Military service. 1 See above, p. 360. - – 2 Hoveden, vol. iv. p. 88. 8 Hoveden, vol. iv. p. 161; Stubbs, Const. Hist., vol. i. p. 522. 4 "The licentiousness of his amours is reckoned by every ancient writer among the principal causes of the and, after first accepting money from the forces, permitted them to disperse.1 But from his accession down to the eventful year 1213 the baronage sullenly yet silently submitted to every insult and oppression that John saw fit to put upon them. While the church was being plundered, the nobles. simply stood by without offering to make the cause of the clergy their own. Not until the quarrel between John and the church had ended in a submission, in which it was stipu lated that the clergy should be indemnified for all losses to which they had been subjected, did the redress of the wrongs which the baronage had suffered become a practical question. Open resistance upon the part of the nobles begins with their refusal in the summer of 1213 to follow John to France upon the ground that he was still excommunicate. That objection being removed by a formal absolution pronounced by Langton on the 20th of July,2 John made a second demand upon the baronage to follow him. All admitted his right to call The barons upon them for service at home, but the northern barons, the refuse to barons who had sprung to greatness upon the ruins of the abroad. great houses of the Conquest, now openly maintained that their tenure did not compel them to serve abroad, and therefore they refused to follow the king. In a storm of rage at their defiance John, on the 25th of August, marched rapidly northward to force them to submission. At Northampton he was overtaken by Archbishop Langton, who reminded him that it was the right of the accused to be heard in the king's court, that not until all legal methods of redress had been appealed to in vain did he have the right to make war upon them. John continued his march, but before proceeding to extremities he yielded to Langton's suggestion, and summoned the revolting barons to appear on a certain day before the king or his justices.5 1 Upon this whole subject of taxation and military service, see Stubbs, Const. Hist., vol. p. 523. 2 The patriot primate required John at the same time to swear not only to maintain the church, but to observe the laws of King Eadward, “quodque bonas leges antecessorum suorum, præcipue sancti Edwardi, revocaret, singulis reddens sua jura.”—M. Paris, vol. ii. p. 140. 8 R. Coggeshale, pp. 242, 243. M. Paris attributes this second refusal to the 4 "Si absque judicio curiæ suæ contra quempiam, nedum suos homines geniales, bellum moveret."-M. Paris, vol. ii. p. 142. 5 Ibid., p. 143. serve Council at Three weeks prior to the beginning of John's march to the St. Alban's, north, a memorable council was held at St. Alban's, to which Aug. 4, 1213. tatives from townships summoned. were summoned not only the bishops and barons, but also the reeve and four legal men as representatives from each township on the royal demesne.1 Although the reeve and four men were summoned no doubt simply to assess the damages due to the clergy,2 the incident is important as the first illusRepresen- tration of which there is any historical proof of representatives being summoned to a national council. The gathering at St. Alban's, although called simply to assess the damages due to the church, assumed in its deliberations a far wider scope. The resolves of the assembly, which were cast in the form of royal proclamations, threatened with the severest punishment all royal officers who should practise illegal exactions. But what was far more important, the laws of Henry I. the embodiment of the laws of King Eadward as amended by King William-were brought to the attention of the assembly by the justiciar Geoffry Fitz-Peter, and proclaimed as the laws of the basis upon which the liberties of the nation were to be reestablished.3 The significance of the then almost forgotten laws of Henry I., brought to light by the patriot justitiar, was emphasized by the patriot primate in a second gathering of the barons held at St. Paul's in London on the 25th of the same month. In the council at St. Paul's Langton produced and read the charter of Henry I., which was warmly accepted as the basis of national action. The claims of the councils of St. Alban's and St. Paul's were then laid before the king by the justiciar, who died almost immediately thereafter, leaving the guidance of the baronage to Langton, under whose leadership they united, upon the basis of Henry's charter in an open demand for a definite and positive scheme of national reform. On the 7th of November the king called Geoffry Fitz-Peter recurs to Henry I. In the council at St. Paul's an Langton reads the charter of Henry I. 1 "In crastino autem misit rex litte ras ad omnes vicecomites regni Angliæ, præcipiens ut de singulis dominicorum suorum villis quatuor legales homines cum præposito upud Sanctum Albanum pridie nonas Augusti facerent conve nire." M. Paris (ed. Wats), p. 239. 2 "De damnis singulorum episcoporum et ablatis certitudinem inquireret, et quid singulis deberetur."— Ibid. 3" Galfridus Filius Petri et episco pus Wintoniensis cum archiepiscopo et episcopis et magnatibus regni, ubi cunctis pace regis denunciata ex ejusdem regis parte firmiter præceptum est, quatenus leges Henrici avi sui ab omnibus in regno custodirentur, et omnes leges iniquæ penitus enervarentur." Ibid., p. 239. 4 Ibid., p. 240; Ann. Waverl. p. 178. 5 M. Paris, p. 243; Walter of Cov entry, vol. ii. p. 215. |