n 



JOHN (OF EKOLA.ND). 



JOHN (OF ENGLAND). 



ward* John made u unsuccessful attempt to recover what he bad 

 tbnt lort. 



Whit* itill at war with France, John became involved ID another 

 contest at home, which WM eventually attended with still more fatal 

 rwuha, By insisting upon the right of the crown to nominate the 

 Archbishop of Canterbury, on that see becoming vacant in July 1206, 

 he drew upon himaelf the formidable hostility of the whole body of 

 the national clergy, and alto of the able and imperioua pontiff who 

 then presided over the Western Church. [InxocEKT 111.1 John paid 

 littk regard either to the interdict under which hu kingdom waa laid 

 in 1208, or to the bull of excommunication issued against him the 

 following year, or even to that deposing him and absolving his subjects 

 from their allegiance, which Innocent launched at him in 1212. In 

 the midst of all this ecclesiastical thunder he chastised the Scottish 

 king William, compelling him, in 1209, to avert further hostilities by 

 the payment of a large sum of money, and the delivery of his two 

 daughters, with other hostages, as pledges for his observance of his 

 engagements ; he passed over to Ireland in 1 21 0, and reduced a rebellion 

 of the Englich chieftains there ; and in 1212 he marched into Wales, 

 and compelled Llewellyn, the prince of that country, to make his 

 submission. In the last-mentioned year he also put down a confederacy 

 of certain of his baron*, which had been formed with the object of 

 seizing his person. 



At last however Innocent had recourse to more effective arms than 

 his apostolic artillery. At the instigation of the pope, Philip Augustus 

 prepared to invade England ; and though John at first attempted to 

 meet this threatening danger with some spirit, by conducting an army 

 to France in April 1213, he soon returned home without having done 

 anything; and iu the despair produced by the universal hatred in 

 which he found himself to be held by his subjects, whom his lawless 

 and oppressive government had long alienated and disgusted, he con- 

 sented, at Dover, on the 13th of May 1213, in an interview with 

 Pandulf, the Papal legate, to submit to all the demands of the Uoly 

 See, of which the admission of the pope's nominee, Stephen de 

 Langton, to the archbishopric of Canterbury, was the first. Two 

 days after, ho made over to the pope the kingdoms of England and 

 Ireland, to be hold of him and of the Roman Church in fee, and took 

 to his holiness the ordinary oath taken by vassals to their lords. It 

 was now agreed that there should be an oblivion of the past on both 

 aides, that the bull of excommunication should be revoked by the 

 pope, and that of John's disaffected English subjects those who were 

 in confinement should be liberated, and those who had fled or been 

 banished beyond seas should be permitted to return home. Philip, 

 whose ambition was mortified by this pacification, would have persisted 

 in his project of invasion, even in opposition to the express commands 

 of the pope, but he was compelled to disband his army by the result 

 of a battle fought in June between the English and French fleets, in 

 the harbour of Damme, the first great victory in the naval annals of 

 England, in which 300 of bis vessels were captured, above 100 burned, 

 and all his military stores and provisions, as well as his means of 

 conveyance, taken from him. 



One effect of this victory however was immediately to beget in 

 John a hope of being able to extricate himself from his late engage- 

 ment in favour of the exiles and outlaws, and perhaps also from the 

 vassalage in which he bad bound himself and his kingdom to the pope. 

 In this view he at first attempted to raise an army with which to 

 invade France, before doing anything in fulfilment of his promises 

 either to the barons or the Church ; but finding that the opposition of 

 these united powers was too strong for him, he changed his course of 

 proceeding, and temporised with both, until, by further submissions 

 to the new papal legate, the Cardinal Nicholas, who arrived in England 

 in the end of September, If he did not gain over the national clergy, 

 be at leant converted the pope himself, from being the head of the 

 confederacy against him, into his friend and supporter. The primate 

 Langton however, greatly to his honour, still continued to make 

 common cause with the barons. Langton had already, in a meeting 

 held at St. Alban's, August 26, proposed to the barons to rally round 

 the charter of Henry I., and had solemnly sworn them to hazard their 

 lives in the maintenance of the rights and liberties therein recognised. 

 For a abort time the commencing strife was appeased by an award ol 

 the pope; soon after which, in June 1214, John hastened over to 

 France, where however the great victory of Bouvines, gained by 

 Philip (July 27) over the allied army of the English under John's 

 bastard brother, the earl of Salisbury, the forces of the emperor, ol 

 the Earl of Flanders, and of the Earl of Boulogne, compelled the 

 English king to sue for a cessation of hostilities. On the 19th o 

 October a truce was arranged between the two kingdoms, to last for 

 five years. But the depressed state of John's affairs now presented to 

 bis barons an opportunity for the renewal of their demands, of which 

 they hastened to avail themselves. Their first memorable assemblage, 

 in which they concerted their plans, was held, under pretence of cele- 

 brating the festival of the taint, in the abbey of St. Edmund a 

 Edmundsbury, on the 20th of November. Before they separated 

 they advanced one by one to the high altar, and laying their hand 

 upon it, took a solemn oath to withdraw their fealty, and levy wa 

 upon John, if he should refuse their demands, and never to lay down 

 their arms till they had obtained from him a charter confirming In 

 national liberties. Their petition was formally presented to John in 



tie Temple, at London, on the feast of the Epiphany, the 6th of 

 anuary following. On its rejection, both parties, after an appeal to 

 tie pope, who at once took the part of John, prepared for war. In 

 be beginning of May 1216, the barons having mustered their forces, 

 which they put under the command of Robert Fitzwalter, and desig- 

 ated by the title of the army of Ood and of his Holy Church, pro- 

 ceeded to lay siege to the castle of Northampton. After wasting a 

 ortnight however they were obliged to retire from this fortress : but 

 laving then marched to London, they were gladly received by the 

 itizens (May 17th), and immediately took possession of the city. On 

 his, John consented to a conference, and the celebrated meeting on 

 he plain of Runnymead, which lay about half-way between London 

 and Odiham in Hampshire, whither John had retired, was held in 

 consequence on Trinity Monday, the 16th of June. The result was, 

 he concession and signature by John of the Great Charter, embodying 

 all the barons' demands. 



Scarcely however had Magna Charta been thus extorted, when John 

 set himaelf to work to endeavour to escape from its obligations. Tho 

 uspicions excited by his general conduct, and especially by his intro- 

 luction into the kingdom of numerous bodies of foreigu troops, again 

 called up the barons in arms by the following October. At first this 

 icw contest ran strongly in favour of the king ; William D'Albiney, 

 fho, by the direction of the insurgent leaders, had thrown himself 

 nto the castle of Rochester, was, after sustaining a siege of seven 

 weeks, compelled to surrender at discretion : news soon after arrived 

 hat the pope, as requested by John, had annulled the charter ; this 

 ntelligence was followed by other papal bulls suspending Archbishop 

 jangton, excommunicating the chiefs of the barons by name, and 

 aying the city of London under an interdict; and John was soon 

 enabled to wreak his vengeance on his enemies almost without 

 encountering any resistance. While one part of his army, under the 

 command of the Earl of Salisbury, wasted the counties around tho 

 metropolis, where the chief strength of the barons lay, he himself, 

 with another force, proceeded to the north, where he drove back their 

 ally, Alexander, the young king of Scotland, pursuing him as far as 

 Edinburgh, and reducing to ashes every town, village, and castle, on 

 joth sides of the border, that fell within the range of his furious 

 jrogrcss. In these disastrous circumstances, the barons congregated 

 n London resolved, after much debate, upon the desperate expedient 

 of offering the crown to Louis, the dauphin of France, as the only 

 chance left to them of preserving any part of the national liberties. 

 Accepting the invitation, Louis set sail from Calais with a fleet of 680 

 sail, and on the 30th of May 1216 landed at Sandwich. John retired 

 :o the west at his approach, and the French prince, after attacking and 

 easily reducing tho castle of Rochester, immediately marched to the 

 capital. The fortune of the contest now turned. The people in all 

 'arts of the country eagerly rallied around Louis ; even his foreign 

 kuxiliaries, most of whom were Frenchmen, began to quit the standard 

 of the English king, and either to join that of the invader or to return 

 aome. At this critical moment arrived the news of the death of 

 John's powerful friend Pope Innocent III., (16th July). Still however 

 most of the places of strength were in his hands ; and some months 

 were spent to little purpose by the adverse party in attempts to reduce 

 Dover, Windsor, and other castles which were occupied by his garri- 

 sons. Meanwhile, in the disappointment produced by the protraction 

 of the war, jealousy of their foreign allies was beginning to spread 

 among the insurgents ; and it is very doubtful what the issue of the 

 struggle might have been if the life of John had been prolonged. 

 But on the 14th of October, as he was attempting to ford the Wash at 

 low-water, from Cross-keys to the Foss-dyke, and had already got across 

 himself with the greater part of his army, the return of the tide 

 suddenly swept away the carriages and horses that conveyed all his 

 baggage and treasures ; on which, in an agony of vexation, he proceeded 

 to the Cistercian convent of Swineshead, and was that same night 

 seized with a violent fever, the consequence probably of irritation and 

 fatigue, but which one account attributes to an imprudent indulgence 

 at supper in fruit and new cider ; another to poison administered to 

 him by one of the monks. Although very ill, he was conveyed the 

 next day in a litter to the castle of Stanford, and thence on the 16th 

 to the castle of Newark, where he expired on the 18th, in the forty- 

 ninth year of his age, and the seventeenth of his reign. 



All our historians paint the character of John in the darkest colours ; 

 and the history of his reign seems to prove that to his full share of the 

 ferocity of his race he conjoined an unsteadiness and volatility, a sus- 

 ceptibility of being suddenly depressed by evil fortune and elated 

 beyond the bounds of moderation and prudence by its opposite, which 

 give a littleness to his character not belonging to that of any of his 

 royal ancestors. He is charged in addition with a savage cruelty of 

 disposition, and with the most unbounded licentiousness : while on 

 the other hand BO many vices are not allowed to have been relieved by 

 a single good quality. It ought to be remembered however that John 

 has had no historian ; his cause expired with himself, and every writer 

 of his story has told it in the spirit of the opposite and victorious party; 

 and further, that the intense disgust always felt by every class of his 



countrymen at his base surrender of his kingdom in vassalage to the 



pope, may have led thorn to regard with less distrust all adverse reports 



respecting his general character. 

 The children of John by his quceii Isabella of AiigoulOmc wore 



