

THE 6IGNINO OF THE " GREAT CHARTER" AT RUNNYMEDE. 



HISTORIC SKETCHES. I. 



MAGNA CHAETA. 



IT was high time something should bo done when tho prelates 

 and barons of England made King John sign tho Great Charter. 

 The land had had no rest, the people no security, since the day 

 when Duke William overthrew King Harold at Hastings, in 

 October, 1066. If wo take a glance at tho history of tho 

 hundred and fifty years immediately succeeding the Conquest, 

 wo shall find it a record of many kinds of violence, an account 

 of ono perpetual striving which should be tho greater, and it 

 shows incidentally how much less than the whole world a man 

 tiling to accept in exchange for his soul. Brother had 

 striven with brother, sons with their fathers, for the throne. 

 Kin^s had striven with prelates, barons with priests, for the 

 mastery; baron had waged war on neighbouring baron on 

 account of some private quarrel ; even the religious houses 

 were divided against themselves ; and "the people" that is to 

 say, all those who were not of the so-called noble class had 

 been fearfully ill-used. In spite of the spirit of armed religion, 

 as embodied in tho institution of chivalry in spite of the 

 efforts of great and good men to procure some recognition of 

 the law which bids us do unto others as we would have them 

 do unto us, the grossest tyranny prevailed. The weakest went 

 to the wall, and of the rulers it might well be said 



" The good old rule 

 Sufficeth them the simple plan 

 That they should take who have tlio power, 

 And they should keep who cau." 



Under such circumstances, it is not very wonderful if we find 

 that the position of all classes beneath tho highest, and notably 

 the class which furnished labourers, was perfectly intolerable. 

 The king oppressed the barons, tho barons fought among them- 

 selves and oppressed tlu-ir w.v.K.-r brethren, the lesser barons 

 no small freeholders, and the small freeholders 

 < with the thraldom in which they kept the 



labourers who depended on them for a living. Sometimes 

 things were better, sometimes worse ; but at all times, as far as 

 the workmen were concerned, bad was best. md his 



saints slept," said tho poor people in the reign of Stephen, 

 1135-1154. In no other way .could they account fcr 

 grievous condition. " You might as well have tilled the " 

 as tho land, says the Anglo-Saxon chronicler, for when the 

 husbandman had spent his labour and his earnings so as to 

 induce the earth to bring forth her increase, lawless men 

 swooped down upon tho crop, and as often as not slew the help- 

 less owner of it, and drove his family into slavery. Every man 

 who was strong enough built a castle, forcing the people to 

 work at the stronghold which was to overawe them ; and ho 

 paid them for neither time nor trouble. " They filled the land 

 full of castles" there were eleven hundred in England in 

 Stephen's reign, when the population was under two million" 

 " they greatly oppressed tho wretched people by making them 

 work at these castles, and when the castles were finished 

 they filled them with devils and evil men." So writes the 

 chronicler. 



At tunes the Church lifted her voice to warn, to eihort, and 

 to threaten ; and now and again, in the most solemn manner, 

 put the most notorious evil-doers out of the communion of 

 Christian men; but in spite of the superstitions fears, which 

 were general, respecting the power of the priesthood, the 

 Church was nearly powerless to stop the universal rapine, until 

 she resorted to the bold expedient of putting Christianity under 

 arms. This she did by founding, or rather by moulding on 

 her own plan, the institution of chivalry. She enlisted under 

 the banner of the Cross tho choicest and most generous of tho 

 warlike spirits, and having sworn them by word and deed, in 

 every way, " to break the heathen and uphold tho Christ," she 

 sent them forth against the wolves who were making such 

 havoc in her shoepfold. Murderers, robbers, violators, Rcotm- 

 dreis of all sorts, began now to count the cost of their actions, 

 and then they hesitated about repeating them, for thov found 

 they had to lay their account with cracked "kulls and slashed 



