V. The Years of Crisis, 1213–15.

For a brief season after John had made his peace with Rome, he seemed to enjoy substantial fruits of his diplomacy. Once more the short-sighted character of his abilities was illustrated; a brief triumph led to a deeper fall. The King for the moment considered, with some show of reason, that he had regained the mastery of his enemies at home and abroad. Philip’s threatened invasion had to be abandoned; the people renewed their allegiance on the removal of the papal sentence; the barons had to reconcile themselves as best they could, awaiting a better opportunity to rebel. If John had confined himself to home affairs, he might have postponed the final explosion: he could not, however, reconcile himself to the loss of the great continental heritage of his ancestors. His attempts to recover Normandy and Anjou, partly by force of arms and partly by a great coalition, led to new exactions and new murmurings, while they ended in complete failure, which left him, discredited and penniless, at the mercy of the malcontents at home.

His projected campaign in Poitou would require all the levies he could raise. More than once John demanded, and his barons refused, their feudal service. Many excuses were put forward. At first they declined to follow a King who had not yet been fully absolved. Yet when Archbishop Stephen, on 20th July, 1213, removed the papal censure from John at Winchester, after exacting promises of good government, the northern barons still refused. Their new plea was that the tenure on which they held their lands did not compel them to serve abroad. They added that they were already exhausted by expeditions within England. [11]

John took this as open defiance, and determined, with troops at his back (per vim et arma), to compel obedience.

Before his preparations were completed, an important assembly had met at St. Albans (on 4th August) to make sworn inquest as to the extent of damage done to churchmen during the years of John’s quarrel with Rome. The meeting is notable, not merely because of the reason of its summons, but also because of its composition. It is the earliest national council in which the principle of representation received recognition (so far as our records go). [12] Four lawful men, with the reeve, from each village or manor on the royal demesne, were present, but only, it must be remembered, in a very mean capacity—only to make a sworn inquest as to the amount of damage done. Such inquests by the humble representatives of the villages were quite common locally; the innovation lies in this, that their verdict was now given in a national assembly. Directions were issued in the King’s name from the same meeting, commanding sheriffs, foresters, and others to observe the laws of Henry I. and to abstain from unjust exactions, as they valued their limbs and lives. [13]

On 25th August, after John had set out with his mercenaries to punish by force of arms the refusal of his northern magnates to follow him to the Continent, as he held them bound to do in terms of their feudal obligations, Stephen Langton held a meeting with the great men of the south. Many bishops, abbots, priors and deans, together with some lay magnates of the southern counties, met him at St. Paul’s, London. The ostensible object of this assembly was to determine what use the Archbishop should make of his power to grant partial relaxation of the interdict still casting its blight over England—which could not be finally lifted until the legate arrived with fuller powers. If we may believe Roger of Wendover, more important business was transacted in the King’s absence. Stephen reminded the magnates that John’s absolution had been conditional on a promise of good government, and as a standard to guide them in judging what such government implied, he produced a copy of Henry I.’s Charter of Liberties. All present swore to “fight for those liberties, if it were needful, even unto death.” The Archbishop promised his help, “and a confederacy being thus made between them, the conference was dissolved.” [14]

Stephen Langton, however, desired a peaceable solution if possible, and three days later we find him, after a somewhat hurried journey, at Northampton, on the 28th of August, striving earnestly, and with success, to avert civil war between John and the recalcitrant Crown tenants in the north.

His line of argument is worthy of especial note. The King, he urged, must not levy war on his subjects before he had obtained a legal judgment against them. The substance of this advice should be compared with the terms of chapter 39 of Magna Carta. John resented the interference of Stephen in lay matters, and continued his march to Nottingham; but threats of fresh excommunications caused him at length to consent to substitute legal process for violence, and to appoint a day for the trial of the defaulters before the Curia Regis—a trial which never took place. [15]

John apparently continued his journey as far north as Durham, but returned to meet the new papal legate Nicholas, to whom he performed the promised homage and repeated the formal act of surrender in St. Paul’s on 3rd October. [16] Having thus completed his alliance with the Pope, he was confident of worsting his enemies in France and England. As most, if not all, of the great magnates were against him, he saw that it would be well to strengthen his position by support of the class beneath them in the feudal scheme of society. Perhaps it was this that led John to broaden the basis of the national assembly. The great Council which met at Oxford on 15th November, 1213, was made notable by the presence, in addition to the Crown tenants, of representatives of the various counties. The sheriffs, in the words of the King’s writs, were to cause to assemble all knights already summoned (that is, the Crown tenants) and four discreet men of each county “ad loquendum nobiscum de negotiis regni nostri.” Miss Norgate [17] lays stress on the fact that these writs were issued after the death of the great Justiciar Geoffrey Fitz-Peter, and before any successor had been appointed. John, she argues, acted on his own initiative, and is thus entitled to the credit of being the first statesman to introduce representatives of the counties into the national assembly. The importance of this precedent need not be obscured by the selfish nature of the motives to which it was due. Knights who were tenants of mesne lords (Miss Norgate says “yeomen”) were invited to act as a counterpoise to the barons. This innovation anticipated the line of progress afterwards followed by de Montfort and Edward I. Compared with it, the often-praised provisions of chapter 14 of Magna Carta must be regarded as antiquated and even reactionary.

In the early spring of 1214, John considered his home troubles ended, and that he was now free to use against France the coalition formed by his diplomacy. He went abroad early in February, leaving Peter des Roches, the unpopular Bishop of Winchester, to keep the peace as Justiciar, and to guard his interests, in concert with the papal legate. Although deserted by the northern barons, John relied partly on his mercenaries, but chiefly on the Emperor Otto and his other powerful allies. Fortune, always fickle, favoured him at first, only to ruin all his schemes more completely in the end. The crash came on Sunday, 27th July, 1214, when the King of France triumphed over the allies at the decisive battle of Bouvines. Three months later, John was compelled to sign a five years’ truce with Philip, abandoning all pretensions to recover his continental dominions.

He had left enemies at home more dangerous than those who conquered him at Bouvines—enemies who had been watching with trembling eagerness the vicissitudes of his fortunes abroad. His earlier successes struck dismay into the malcontents in England, apprehensive of the probable sequel to his triumphant return home. They waited with anxiety, but not in idleness, the culmination of his campaign, wisely refraining from open rebellion until news reached them of his failure or success. Meanwhile, they quietly organized their programme of reform and their measures of resistance. John’s strenuous endeavours to exact money and service, while failing to fill his Exchequer as he hoped, had ripened dormant hostility into an active confederacy organized for resistance. When England learned the result of the battle, the barons felt that the moment for action had arrived.

Even while abroad, John had not relaxed his efforts to wring exactions from England. Without consent or warning, he had imposed a scutage at the unprecedented rate of three marks on the knight’s fee. Writs for its collection had been issued on 26th May, 1214, an exception being indeed allowed for tenants personally present in the King’s army in Poitou. The northern barons, who had already refused to serve in person, now refused likewise to pay the scutage. This repudiation was couched in words particularly bold and sweeping; they denied liability to follow the King not merely to Poitou, but to any part of the Continent. [18]

When John returned, in the middle of October, 1214, he found himself confronted with a crisis unique in English history. During his absence, the opponents of his misrule had drawn together, formulated their grievances, and matured their plans. The embarrassments on the Continent which weakened the King, heartened the opposition. The northern barons took the lead. Their cup of wrath, which had long been filling, overflowed when the scutage of three marks was imposed. Within a fortnight of his landing, John held an interview with the malcontents at Bury St. Edmunds (on 4th November, 1214). [19] No compromise was arrived at. John pressed for payment of the scutage, and the barons refused.

It seems probable that, after John’s retiral, a conference of a more private nature was held at which, under cloak of attending the Abbey for prayer, a conspiracy against John was sworn. Roger of Wendover gives a graphic account of what happened. The magnates came together “as if for prayers; but there was something else in the matter, for after they had held much secret discourse, there was brought forth in their midst the charter of King Henry I., which the same barons had received in London ... from Archbishop Stephen of Canterbury.” [20] A solemn oath was taken to withdraw their fealty (a threat actually carried into effect on 5th May of the following year), and to wage war on the King, unless he granted their liberties; and a date—soon after Christmas—was fixed for making their formal demands. Meanwhile they separated to prepare for war. The King also realized that a resort to arms was imminent. While endeavouring to collect mercenaries, he tried unsuccessfully to sow dissension among his opponents. In especial, he hoped to buy off the hostility of the Church by a separate charter which he issued on 21st November. This professes to be granted “of the common consent of our barons.” Its object was to gratify the Church by turning canonical election from a sham into a reality. The election of prelates, great and small, should henceforward be really free in all cathedral and conventual churches and monasteries, saving to the Crown the right of wardship during vacancies. John promised never to deny or delay his consent to an election, and conferred powers on the electors, if he should do so, to proceed without him. The King was bitterly disappointed in his hope that by this bribe he would bring over the national Church from the barons’ side to his own.

John was probably well aware of what took place at St. Edmunds after he had left, and he also knew that the close of the year was the time fixed for the making of demands. He held what must have been an anxious Christmas at Worcester (always a favourite resting-place of this King), but tarried only for a day, hastening to the Temple, London, where the proximity of the Tower would give him a feeling of security. There, on 6th January, 1215, a deputation from the insurgents met him without disguising that their demands were backed by force. These demands, they told him, included the confirmation of the laws of King Edward, with the liberties set forth in Henry’s Charter.

On the advice of the Archbishop and the Marshal, who acted as mediators, John asked a truce till Easter, which was granted in return for the promise that he would then give reasonable satisfaction. The Archbishop, the Marshal, and the Bishop of Ely were named as the King’s securities.

On 15th January, John re-issued the Charter to the Church, and demanded a renewal of homage from all his subjects. The sheriffs in each county were instructed to administer the oath in a specially stringent form; all Englishmen must now swear to “stand by him against all men.” Meanwhile emissaries were dispatched by both sides to Rome. Eustace de Vesci, as spokesman of the malcontents, asked Innocent, as overlord of England, to compel John to restore the ancient liberties, and claimed consideration on the ground that John’s surrender to the Pope had been made under pressure put on the King by them—all to no effect. John thought to propitiate the Pope by taking the cross, a politic measure (the date of which is given by one authority as 2nd February, and by another as 4th March), which would also serve to protect him against personal violence, and which afforded him, as is well illustrated by several chapters of Magna Carta, a fertile excuse for delay in remedying abuses. In April, the northern barons, convinced that the moment for action had arrived, met in arms at Stamford, and after Easter (when the truce had expired) marched southward to Brackley, in Northampton. There they were met, on 27th April, by the Archbishop and the Marshal, as emissaries from the King, who demanded what they wanted. They received in reply, and took back with them to John, a certain schedule, which consisted for the most part of ancient laws and customs of the realm, with an added threat that if the King did not immediately adhibit his seal the rebels would constrain him by seizing his castles, lands, and goods. [21]

This schedule may be regarded as a rough draft of the document more fully drawn out six weeks later, commonly known as the Articles of the Barons. [22]

John’s answer, when he read these demands, was emphatic. “Why do not the barons, with these unjust exactions, ask my kingdom?” Then furious, he declared with an oath that he would never grant them such liberties, whereby he would make himself a slave. [23]

On 5th May the barons formally renounced allegiance [24] and chose as commander, Robert Fitz-Walter, who styled himself piously and grandiloquently, “Marshal of the army of God and Holy Church.”

The insurgents, still shivering on the brink of civil war, delayed to march southwards. Much would depend on the attitude of London, with its wealth and central position; and John bade high for the support of its citizens. On 9th May a new charter [25] was granted to the Londoners, who now received a long-coveted privilege, the right to elect their mayor annually and to remove him at the year’s end. This marked the culmination of a long series of progressive grants in their favour. Previously the mayor had held office for life, and Henry Fitz-Aylwin, the earliest holder of the office (appointed perhaps in 1191), had died in 1213.

Apparently no price was paid for this charter; but John doubtless expected in return the grateful support of the Londoners, exactly as he had expected the support of churchmen when he twice granted a charter in their favour. In both instances he was disappointed. Next day he made, probably as a measure of delay, an offer of arbitration to the barons. In the full tide of military preparations, he issued a writ in these words: "Know that we have conceded to our barons who are against us that we shall not take or disseise them or their men, nor go against them per vim vel per arma, unless by the law of our land, or by the judgment of their peers in curia nostra, until consideration shall have been made by four whom we shall choose on our part and four whom they shall choose on their part, and the lord Pope who shall be oversman over them"—words worthy of careful comparison with those used in chapter 39 of Magna Carta. The offer could not be taken seriously, since it left the decision of every vital issue virtually to the Pope, whom the barons distrusted. [26]

Another royal writ, of two days later date, shows a rapid change of policy, doubtless due to the contemptuous rejection of arbitration. On 12th May, John ordered the sheriffs to do precisely what he had offered not to do. They were told to take violent measures against the rebels without waiting for a “judgment of peers” or other formality. Lands, goods, and chattels of the King’s enemies were to be seized and applied to his benefit. [27]

The barons, rejecting all offers, marched by Northampton, Bedford, and Ware, towards the capital. London, in spite of the charter received eight days earlier, boldly threw in its lot with the insurgents, to whom it opened its gates on 17th May. [28] The example of London was quickly followed by other towns and by many hesitating nobles. The confederates felt strong enough to issue letters to all who still adhered to the King, bidding them forsake him on pain of forfeiture.

John found himself, for the moment, without power of effective resistance; and, probably with the view of gaining time rather than of committing himself irretrievably to any abatement of his prerogatives, agreed to meet his opponents. As a preliminary to this, on 8th June he issued a safe-conduct for the barons’ representatives to meet him at Staines within the three days following. This was apparently too short notice, as on 10th June, John, now at Windsor, granted an extension of the time and safe-conduct till Monday, 15th June. William the Marshal and other envoys were dispatched from Windsor to the barons in London with what was practically a message of surrender. The barons were told that John “would freely accede to the laws and liberties which they asked,” if they would appoint a place and day for a meeting. The intermediaries, in the words of Roger of Wendover, [29] "without guile carried back to the barons the message which had been guilefully imposed on them"—implying that John meant to make no promises, except such as were insincere. Yet the barons, immenso fluctuantes gaudio, fixed as the time of meeting the last day of the extended truce, Monday, 15th June, at a certain meadow between Staines and Windsor, known as Runnymede.