10. Demands of the Barons. -Philip was greatly disappointed. He had to give up the invasion of England. The English nobles were disappointed too They wanted not merely that the clergy should be safe, but that every man, layman or clergyman, rich or poor, should be safe under the protection of the law. When Archbishop Stephen Langton arrived in England, he was large-minded enough to see that it was better for the clergy to join with the laity than to be content with the pope's protection for themselves. The nobles gathered an army together, and the archbishop drew up the demands which the king was to be asked to grant. This time the king had not his mercenaries with him. Sulkily and sorely against his will John swore at Runnimede, an island in the Thames near Staines, to give all that he was asked to give.

11. Magna Carta.—The demands which, in 1215, he swore to grant, are known in history as the Great Charter, or by their Latin name as Magna Carta. By them the king engaged to levy no payments from those who held their lands from him, except in certain specified cases, unless they granted money to him themselves. Neither was he to deal with the life and goods of Englishmen at his pleasure. 'No freeman,' he was made to declare, shall be seized, or imprisoned, or dispossessed, or outlawed, or in any way brought to ruin; nor will we go against any man nor send against him, save by the legal judgment of his peers or by the law of the land.' The Great Charter contained other articles of the highest value. But the root of the matter

lay in these two. The king of England was not to be a man raised up above his fellows to take as much of their money as he pleased, or to imprison them or punish them when he pleased. He was to take their money when they gave it him for public objects, and he was to punish them only when they were adjudged to have committed crimes by the verdict of their fellow-countrymen. Later generations built on these two principles a whole system of law. But it is the Great Charter which is the foundation of it all. The first principle, that the king could not take money when he pleased, made him obliged to take the advice of his subjects, because they would not give him money unless he did as they wished him to do. Gradually in this way the government of the country came to be carried on not as the king wished but as the people wished. The second principle, that the king could not punish those whom he wished has brought it about that we are governed by law, and not by the will of any one man.

12. Final Troubles of the Reign.-It was easier to lay down such principles than to enforce them. John was not inclined to submit to his subjects longer than he could help. He slipped away, got together his mercenaries, turned savagely upon the nobles who had resisted him, and drove them before him. They, in turn, called in foreign help. As he in his necessity had taken the pope to be his supporter, so they in their necessity called upon Lewis, the son of the king of France, to come to be their king. Lewis landed with an army. The pope took

the part of John. Like some other people, he could not bear to see a good thing done unless he were the doer of it. The fortune of war seemed likely to decide against John and the pope. As John crossed the sands of the Wash, the tide rose and swept away his baggage, in which was a large quantity of money. Disappointed, he fell ill and died at Newark in the autumn of 1216.

CHAPTER X.

HENRY III. AND THE BARONS' WARS.

HENRY III. 1216.

1. The English People declare for Henry III.—It seems strange to us that a Frenchman should have been invited to reign in England. The idea that those who govern a nation should be born in it and speak its language could not be felt as strongly then as it is now. It is true that the mass of men then, as now, spoke English. But the nobles and great men spoke French, and the clergy used Latin in the services of the Church, and wrote and sometimes spoke in Latin. Still, especially after Normandy had been lost, the English people were beginning to feel that they were Englishmen, whatever language they spoke. The few who followed John to the last crowned his son Henry as king, and those who had opposed John after a little time

accepted Henry. Lewis found himself deserted, and was obliged to return to France.

2. Accession of Henry III.-Henry III. was but nine years old. It was the first time that a child had been king of England. If he had had an uncle

WILLIAM MARSHALL, EARL OF PEMBROKE.

or an older cousin he would probably never have ruled. As he had none, men preferred an English child as their king to a grown-up man who was French. The noble William Marshall, Earl of Pembroke, governed the kingdom during the short

F

remainder of his life. The Great Charter was ac cepted as the law of the land; but the part of it forbidding the king to tax those who held lands from him without their consent was left out.

3. Henry's Weakness of Character. When young

Henry became a man, he made a very bad king He was not cruel and violent like his father, but weak and contemptible. He made many promises but never kept them. He was fond of spending money, and he often spent it to no good purpose.