Part 31

2. In demanding and obtainign the Great Charter, the Church and the nobility made common cause with all classes of the people. That document represents the victory of the entire nation. We shall see that the next eighty years will 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 well 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 millstone, 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 valley."

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 called in this reign (1246). It thus helped, as we shall see later on, to prepare for a very important change in that body.

The first tax on movable or personal property appears to have been levied by Henry II, in 1188, for the support of the Crusades. Under Henry III the idea began to become general that no class should be taxed without their consent; out of this grew the representation of townspeople in Parliament.

206. Henry's Extravagance.

When Henry became of age he entered upon a course of extravagant expenditure. This, with unwise and unsuccessful wars, finally piled up debts to the amount of nearly a million of marks, or, in modern money, upwards of 13,000,000 pounds. To satisfy the clamors of his creditors, he mortgaged the Jews (S119), or rather the right of extorting money from them, to his brother Richard.

He also violated the chaters and treaties in order to compel those who benefited from them to purchase their reissue. On the birth of his first son, Prince Edward, he showed himself so eager for congratulatory gifts, that one of the nobles present at court said, "Heaven gave us this child, but the King sells him to us."

207. His Church Building.

Still, not all of the King's extravagance was money thrown away. Everywhere on the Continent magnificent churches were rising. The heavy and somber Norman architecture, with its round arches and square, massive towers, was giving place to the more graceful Gothic style, with its pointed arch and lofty, tapering spire.

The King shared the religious enthusiasm of those who built the grand cathedrals of Salisbury and Lincoln. He himself rebuilt the greater part of Westminster Abbey (S66) as it now stands. A monument so glorious ought to make us willing to overlook some faults in the builder. Yet the expense and taxation incurred in erecting the great minster must be reckoned among the causes that bred discontent and led to civil war (S212).

208. Religious Reformation; the Friars, 1221; Roger Bacon.

While this movement, which covered the land with religious edifices, was in progress, religion itself was undergoing a change. The old monastic orders had grown rich, indolent, and corrupt. The priests had well-nigh ceased to do missionary work. At this period a reform sprang up within the Church itself. On the Continent two new religious orders arose, calling themselves Friars, or Brothers. They first came to England in 1221. These Brothers bound themselves to a life of self-denial and good works. Some labored in the outskirts of towns among the poor and the sick and called them to hear the glad tidings of the teachings of Christ. From their living on charity they came to be known as "Beggin Friars."

Others, like Roger Bacon at Oxford, took an important part in education, and endeavored to rouse the sluggish monks to make efforts in the same direction. Bacon's experiments in physical science, which was then neglected and despiseed, got him the reputation of being a magician. He was driven into exile, imprisoned for many years, and deprived of books and writing materials.

But, as nothing could check the religious fervor of his mendicant brothers, so no hardship or suffering could daunt the intellectual enthusiasm of Bacon. When he emerged from captivity he issued his great book entitled an "Inquiry into the Roots of Knowledge." It was especially devoted to mathematics and the sciences, and deserves the name of the encyclopedia fo the thirteenth century.

Bacon designated this book by the name of "Opus Majus," or "Greater Work," to distinguish it from a later summary which he alled his "Opus Minus," or "Smaller Work."

209. The "Mad Parliament"; the Provisions of Oxford (1258).

But the prodigal expenditure and mismanagement of Henry kept on increasing. At last the burden of taxation became too great to bear. Bad harvests had caused a famine, and multitudes perished even in London. Confronted by these evils, Parliament (S205) met in the Great Hall at Westminster. Many of the barons were in complete armor. As the King entered there was an ominous clatter of swords. Henry, looking around, asked timidly, "Am I a prisoner?"

"No, sire," answered Earl Bigod (S172); "but we must have reform." The King agreed to summon a Parliament to meet at Oxford and consider what should be done. The enemies of this assembly nicknamed it the "Mad Parliament" (1258); but there was method and determination in its madness, for which the country was grateful.

With Simon de Montfort, the King's brother-in-law, at their head, they drew up a set of articles, called the Provisions of Oxford, to which Henry gave an unwilling assent. These Provisions practically took the government out of the King's inefficient hand and vested it in the control of three committees, or councils. (See Summary of Constitutional History in the Appendix, p. x, S11.)

210. Renewal of the Great Charter (1253).

Meanwhile the King had been compelled to reaffirm that Great Charter which his father had unwillingly granted at Runnymede (S198). Standing in St. Catherine's Chapel within the partially finished church of Westminster Abbey (S207), Henry, holding a lighted taper in his hand, in company with the chief men of the realm, swore to observe the provisions of the covenant.

At the close he exclaimed, as he dashed the taper on the pavement, while all present repeated the words and the action, "So go out with smoke and stench the accursed souls of those who break or pervert this charter."