John and the Church

John now went rapidly from bad to worse. His best councillors had died : his mother in 1204, Hubert Walter in 1205. Deprived of their wise and restraining influence, John forced a quarrel with the church, with which his relations had thus far been amicable. The trouble concerned a successor to Archbishop Hubert Walter. John claimed the right, which certainly had been exercised by his predecessors, of naming the archbishop. But the bishops of the province of Canterbury asserted that the right was theirs. In the meantime the monks of the chapter, desiring to have a prelate favorable to them, secretly selected a candidate and sent him to Rome for the pallium. In the quandary, Innocent III, glad of an opportunity to demonstrate the power of the church, swept aside the sub-prior, Reginald, sent by the monks, and also John's candidate, John de Gray, bishop of Norwich, and put in their place Stephen Langton. Langton was an English cardinal residing at Rome, one of the noblest men of his time, a, wise and learned ecclesiastic, destined to play a part little anticipated by the great Innocent. He was consecrated in June, 1207.

John refused to receive or to recognize the new archbishop, and the issue between the pope and the king was sharply defined. John confiscated the estates of the archbishop, and of many of the bishops who supported Langton. Innocent replied with a bull, placing England under an interdict.' Churches were closed ; the sacraments of marriage and the Eucharist were forbidden; extreme unction, burials, and baptisms were performed only in private. For five years the king remained obstinate. In 1209 Innocent hurled at John an edict of excommunication,' but the king answered the bull by seizing the estates of the bishops who published it. In 1212 Innocent deposed John and formed a coalition, with Philip Augustus as its willing head, to undertake a crusade for the purpose of driving John out of England. Threatened by an uprising of the Welsh and Scots, and terrified by a prophecy that he would cease to be king by Ascension Day, John yielded. He gave his kingdom to the pope, and received it back as a vassal of the Holy See, on the condition that he pay one thousand marks a year, receive Langton, and reinstate all deposed bishops.

This humiliating act reconciled John with the church, but it only deepened the growing opposition of the English people and barons to the king. Such a submission, though at first seemingly a victory, in that it brought peace with the church, was in reality the precursor of a day of bitter reckoning for the king.

John's Attempt to Recover his French Lands

John now believed that his triumph was at hand. Reconciled with the church, he determined to take revenge on Philip, his greatest enemy, and if possible recover his lands. He joined a league of Philip's enemies, consisting of his own nephew, Otto IV, and the counts of Flanders and Boulogne, two great feudal lords of France. A decisive battle was fought at Bouvines, July 27, 1214, one of the most important battles in the history of France, England, and Germany. Philip was victorious, and returned to Paris with the great task of establishing French monarchy accomplished. Otto IV lost all hope of holding the crown of Germany or the empire against the Hohenstaufens the pope; while John, though not actually present at the battle, realized that he was hopelessly defeated, and gave up all further attempts to win back his Norman and Angevin territory. The battle of Bouvines prepared the way for Magna Carta.

John and the Barons

England was on the verge of civil war. Hitherto the people had sided with the king against the feudal lords. But the successes of Henry II had broken up the old feudal opposition and a new baronage had arisen, which, though still feudal in habits and sympathies, was interested not only in the maintenance of its rights as a class, but also in good government for all the English people. The heavy exactions of two such kings as Richard and John had brought matters to a crisis, and before the battle of Bouvines the barons had shown their determination to resist further despotism on the part of the king. When in 1213 John had sought to persuade the barons to go with him to France, those of the north refused to serve anywhere out of England. They refused also to pay scutage. At a council held at St. Albans the same year, at which not only the barons were present, but also men from the townships on the royal demesne, the justiciar, Geoffrey Fitz Peter, presented as a basis of the barons' demands the half-forgotten charter of Henry I. This was repeated at a council at St. Paul's three weeks later by the archbishop, Stephen Langton.

The enthusiasm roused by these meetings turned to confident determination after John's defeat at Bouvines. Immediately the archbishop and the barons drew up the "articles of the barons," a definite statement of their demands, and presented it to the king. John in hot passion refused to receive it. Then an army numbering over two thousand knights, called the Army of God and Holy Church, accompanied by the citizens of London and led by Robert Fitz Walter, marched against him. Seeing that church, baronage, and people were prepared to gain their demands by force, and deserted by all save the mercenaries whom he had brought from France, John, angry but helpless, was obliged to yield. At Runnymede on the Thames, June 15, 1215, he signed Magna Carta, the great charter of English liberties.