Part 29

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 fell 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 tells us that he was killed in an attempt to escape. The general belief, however, was that the King murdered him.

Shakespeare's "King John," Act IV, scenes i and iii.

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 all 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 walls of iron." "I would hold it," retorted Richard, "were its walls 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" fell. Then the end speedily came. Philip seized all Normandy and followed 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 finally separated from England (S108). From that time the Norman nobles were compelled 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, and henceforth they made the welfare of England their main thought.

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 will be the other way. Henceforth the welfare of the nation will depend largely on the resistence of these very barons to the despotic encroachments of the Crown.

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 compelled them to elect. When the news reached John, he forbade Langton's landing in England, although it was his native country.

The Pope forthwith declared the kingdom under an interdict, or suspension of religious services. For two years the churches were hung in mourning, the bells 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 bull 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 all. John's tyranny, brutality, and disregard of his subjects' welfare had gone too far. He had refused the Church the right to fill 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 compelled 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 villeins, 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 in which the whole of the national liberties was summed up.

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 all 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 fuller and stronger in its provisions.