age of the realm rose in arms, and came with their retainers to Brackley. Here was their first false step. They demanded the charter. John answered with scorn that he would never grant liberties which would make him a slave. But they were, with one or two exceptions, the liberties he had already sworn to observe. They then appealed to force — defied the king, renounced their homage, and levied war upon him. Their army was led by Robert Fitzwalter, under the name of "the army of God and of the Holy Church." They came in haste to London. They summoned every man to join them, under pain of being treated as a public enemy. Excepting the king's foreign garrisons, the whole country north of the Thames was in open rebellion. The courts of justice ceased to sit; no man would pay any dues or acknowledge the king's authority. John yielded a second time, and demanded a day for interview with the barons. On June 18, 1215, they met at Runnymede. The Magna Charta was accepted by the king; but on the spot he sent envoys to Rome to urge its nullity, as being extorted by rebellion, and in disregard of the suzerainty of the Holy See.
It is evident that John, seeing himself helpless in all other ways, determined to bring down the spiritual authority of Innocent upon the barons. He therefore, with great skill, deceived the pope, and roused his indignation against them. For this end, he heaped together everything that could excite his anger. He told Innocent that the barons made light of his letters; that the archbishops and bishops neglected to put them in execution; that he had told them in vain that England was the patrimony of S. Peter, and that he held of the Roman Church; that he had taken the cross; that as a crusader he desired to treat with them in humility and meekness; that he had offered them the abolition of all evil customs and all griefs; that they were bent on troubling the kingdom; that he had dismissed his foreign troops, though in so doing he had deprived the crusade of most important and powerful aids, etc.[1] It is impossible to carry diplomatic craft to a higher perfection.
John simply deceived the pope into a belief that he was sincere, and that the barons, and even the bishops, were rebels to him, and contumacious to the Holy See. But he went even beyond this. He forged the seals of the bishops, and wrote everywhere abroad in their name, saying that "the English were detestable apostates, and that the king and the pope would confirm their possessions to whomsoever would take up arms against them."
Again, in the month of September, after the acceptance of the charter in June, he wrote saying that the barons were devoted to him before he submitted to the Holy See, and from that time turned him, and "especially, as they publicly said, for that cause they violently rose against him."[2] It was no wonder that the pope was offended and incensed.
In all this, the dissimulation of John outdid itself. Innocent had no choice. On the 24th of August, the envoys received apostolic letters condemning the barons.[3]
II. We have now traced the antecedents of the Great Charter, and we may estimate its condemnation, and the motives and extent of that condemnation.
- The event is recorded by Matthew Paris in these words — "Then the pope, after deliberation at his will, by a definitive sentence condemned and annulled the oft-named charter of liberties of the kingdom of England, though it contained things pious and just, as a careful inspector may see."[4] The pope nowhere denies that it contained "pia et justa;" but things pious and just may be demanded in a way contrary both to justice and to piety; and this is my contention.
- The pope here explicitly declares the cause of the condemnation, namely: —
- That the barons had levied war against their sovereign.
- That he was a feudal vassal of the Holy See.
- That he had taken the cross.
- That their cause was already in appeal before the Holy See.
- That they had taken the law into their own hands.
- There is not here so much as a sing1e word as to the contents of the Great Charter.
- The first part of it was the charter of ecclesiastical liberties granted by John, and already confirmed by Innocent.
- All other details, social, economical, and political, had been for centuries in use, and confirmed by successive sovereigns, in full peace and communion with the Holy See. It was in behalf of these same laws and liberties that the pope had been for years admonishing and urging
- ↑ Rymer, Fœd. tom. i. p. 200.
- ↑ Ibid. p. 207
- ↑ Ibid. p. 208.
- ↑ Matthew Paris, p. 162.
