The Conquering Family (45 page)

There was more to this gesture than John’s usual sense of the comic at moments of gravity. The kiss was a token of derision. He was laughing at the farce they were playing in the bright sunshine of Magdalen’s Hill. There was defiance in it, defiance of Innocent, of Stephen Langton, of the barons of England. There was in it a hint of future purpose, a message which said, Wait, this is not the end, the time will come when I, John of England, will undo all this which is being done!

Nevertheless, with every outward sign of amity, Sang and archbishop turned their horses and rode back into Winchester, the bishops and knights following after. All joined in the Fifty-first Psalm, the high voice of the King chiming in with the resonant tones of the cardinal.

In Winchester Cathedral, Stephen Langton laid the train for further trouble, for himself and for the whole kingdom of England; but it was done out of his desire to see the country free of her woes and his belief that at last the rift had been closed between Church and State. He absolved John of his sins and then performed the Holy Eucharist in thanksgiving. For this he was never forgiven in Rome. Innocent was a stern victor and a stickler for his own rights. He had humbled John and become the actual head of the kingdom. Only when he, the Pope, saw fit to raise the ban would England be freed. The archbishop had exceeded his authority, and from that moment the face of the Pontiff was turned away from his own appointee, the man for whom he had entered on this bitter struggle. Never again was Stephen Langton to know favor.

Innocent had many things to settle before the interdict would be lifted. First he had to inform Philip of France that, as the insurgency of John had been quelled and England was now a fief of Rome, there could be no invasion of the country. Philip naturally was amazed and outraged. Had he then raised a great army and fleet, at unprecedented expense, and all for nothing? Must he now disband his forces without compensation or reward? He fumed bitterly because he had been sure that the decisive defeat of his English rival had been imminent. He did not enjoy serving as cat’s paw to the Pope.

This blow to his ambitions, his dignity, and his purse rankled so deeply
that the French King turned like a wounded animal and struck at the nearest victim, which happened to be Flanders. The French armies, equipped for immediate fighting, invaded the provinces of the Count of Flanders, who had allied himself with England. It was to help the count that William Long-Espée was sent to attack the French fleet. The victory he scored saved the Low Country and might also have saved England if it had been won a few weeks earlier, or if John had possessed more fortitude.

The terms of John’s capitulation to Rome called for payment in full of all losses the Church had sustained. Pandulfo was replaced as legate by Nicholas, the Bishop of Frascati, to whom fell the task of adjusting the claims. They began to come in at once, and John was horrified when he discovered how large they were. Canterbury alone demanded twenty thousand marks. Every bishop had claims for buildings destroyed, livestock stolen, forests burned. Every parish priest, except those who had disobeyed the Pope by continuing to officiate, had suffered losses. In addition there were the rents on church properties which had been collected by the Crown and spent long since; every penny of this vast sum must now be paid back.

With rising wrath and the painful reluctance of a parsimonious man, the King finally brought himself to the point of making an offer. He would pay a lump sum of one hundred thousand marks and the Church could settle how the money was to be applied and divided. This amount would not cover more than a fraction of the losses which had been piling up over the years. The Church rejected the offer flatly.

And now Innocent III did an extraordinary thing. He disregarded the decision of the Church in England and set the amount of reparations at forty thousand marks! John, delighted, accepted with the greatest alacrity. He perceived that his canny view of future developments had been right. The Pope and he were partners, and it was clear that the Pontiff would not permit anything to happen, even for the benefit of the Church in England, which would weaken the King who had become his vassal.

The new legate proved himself most obnoxious to the people of England. Landing with such a small train that he had only seven horses, the cardinal had demanded at once that he be supplied with fifty. He gathered a stately cavalcade about him and traveled in the greatest grandeur, insisting on the best accommodations and paying nothing. He was like a bailiff who had been put in charge of bankrupt property and who forthwith proceeded to inspect everything, to taste, to pry, to ask impertinent questions.

The offense given thus to the people was small compared to the tribulations he heaped on the churchmen. He took it upon himself to settle all disputes within the Church with ruthless disregard of everything but his
own lordly will. He filled vacancies without any thought of the qualifications of the favorites he brought in.

On one occasion this amiable Cardinal Nicholas was mobbed by priests, nuns, and hospitalers as he left St. Paul’s. They cried out to him in piteous tones that they had obeyed the Pope and gone into exile and poverty. Those who had not obeyed him had remained at home in comfort and without loss and were still in the full enjoyment of their benefices. Was it fair, they demanded, that now they should be told that nothing could be done for them and that strangers should be put in the posts they had vacated? The legate forced his way through them with impatience. He had no instructions to help them, he said. There was nothing he could do for them, nothing.

For one reason and another the better part of a year passed before the interdict was lifted. It had continued for six years, three months, and fourteen days.

O
N
August 27 of the following year, Stephen Langton preached at St. Paul’s in London. There was nothing remarkable in that fact in itself, for the archbishops were more often in London and Westminster than in Canterbury, but two things made the service noteworthy. First, John was in France, fighting the last and least creditable of his campaigns for the recovery of his lost possessions and did not know what was going on at home. Second, the cathedral was filled with all the great people in the country, bishops and noblemen of high degree, plain knights, and even some of the rich citizens of London; and such a gathering could not have been brought together unless there was something very important in the wind.

While waiting for John to yield, Stephen Langton had spent much of his time in the study of canon law. He had become convinced of the cruelty and injustice of the feudal system as well as the need for curbs on the power of rulers. The course he followed on reaching England makes it abundantly clear that he had resolved in advance to use the power of his high office to relieve the burdens of the people.

He stood up before his august audience on this warm August day, and his eyes kindled when he saw that not one of the men he wanted present had failed him. He preached with his accustomed clarity, taking his text from the Psalms,
My heart trusted in God and was helped and my flesh rejoiced
. What he said has not been recorded, but it is certain that the message he delivered was a spiritual one and that the political situation was not referred to openly. Later in the day there was a secret meeting. Where it was held is not known, but it must have been in the London house of one of the great barons. Stephen Langton was the speaker and, as he rose, an air of solemnity could be seen on every face. Everyone there knew that what they would do that day would later be construed as high treason.

The dramatic point of this historically important speech came when the primate produced a document, which was yellow with age and badly
tattered. Did they remember, he asked, that a charter had been signed by Henry I in the early stages of his reign? Few of his hearers had known of the charter, which is not surprising, for a century had passed since it was signed. Still fewer recalled that one hundred copies had been made for distribution to all parts of the country, and none had heard that these copies had disappeared, presumably on the order of the King himself when his mind changed.

It was true, went on the archbishop, that an effort had been made to call back or destroy all copies. One, however, had not been located at the time and so had continued in existence, and after a diligent search had now been found. He held up the yellowed sheet with a reverent hand, knowing it to be the most important state document in the world at that moment. Where it had been found, he did not tell; which was unfortunate, for had he done so part of the mystery at least would have been cleared up.

The archbishop then proceeded to read the copy of this first written safeguard of English liberties. It must have been with special care that he intoned one brief clause:

“And I enjoin on my barons to act in the same way toward the sons and daughters and wives of their dependents.”

A casual enough reference on the surface, this, particularly as it deals with the need for reform in matters of estates and inheritances. Its importance lies in the fact that this was an acknowledgment that common men had rights as well as the nobility and that these rights should be incorporated in the laws of the land. These twenty-two words would help greatly in the fight for freedom over the slow-moving centuries. It was, therefore, a solemn moment when he read them from the paper in his hands and saw acceptance in the eyes of the rich and powerful barons.

When the reading had been completed, the cardinal voiced the belief that this might serve as the basis for the rights to which the consent of the King must now be obtained. His audience seemed in complete agreement. When he held the thin sheet above his head and cried, “Swear it!” every voice in the room joined in with conviction.

In the meantime John was being badly beaten in France. He had formed a coalition against Philip, consisting of the Emperor Otto of Germany and Reginald of Boulogne. As he was still under the ban of excommunication and the other partners to the coalition had also been cursed by bell, book, and candle, their union might very aptly have been called the Unholy Alliance. It was a most futile alliance, at any rate. John made no headway at all in his Poitevin campaign, and his German allies were decisively defeated at the battle of Bouvines, both Otto and Reginald being captured. This brought to an end the Unholy Alliance.

John came back to England, the nickname of Softsword his for life. He whined at the lack of support he had been given and said that now he would make the people of England feel the weight of his anger. He not only imposed a new scutage on all who had not followed him to France, which meant practically everyone, but he searched old records to find proof of arrears. He discovered among other things that Dorset and Somerset had not paid their full share of Richard’s German ransom twenty years before, and he collected what was due. He even proceeded against two men who had been fined by Richard for supporting him, John, while the King was in Palestine, and who had not paid!

His bitter humor manifested itself in smaller ways. The Court of Exchequer was moved from London to Northampton. This bit of petty revenge proved costly in the long run, for the anger of the Londoners was so great that they opposed him from that moment on. He issued orders that all hedges were to be leveled, with the result that beasts of the forest found their way into the fields of the peasants and ate up the crops. Any method he could think of to vent his spleen he put into operation at once; and soon the murmur of the people could be heard from all parts of the land like the steady roar of the sea.

John brought back a force of routiers under the command of as callous a crew of cutthroats as the Middle Ages had ever produced: Engelard de Cigogni, Andrew de Chanceas, Geoffrey de Martigni, Guyon de Cigogni. With these he started out to punish his rebellious barons, razing such castles as fell into his hands and burning the countryside. Stephen Langton followed him to Northampton and sharply protested against this violence.

“You break your oaths to the people,” he declared.

John broke into one of his whinnying tempers. “Rule you the Church!” he cried. “Leave me to govern the State.”

Knowing that the King had said publicly there were three men he hated “like a viper’s blood” and that he, Stephen Langton, himself was one of the three, the archbishop still had the courage to protest further. He followed the royal trail to Nottingham and threatened to excommunicate every man who obeyed the King’s orders. This brought John to his senses and he ended the purge, returning to London.

On Christmas Day there was a meeting of the barons at Bury St. Edmunds, and it was decided to make a definite demand for a charter based on that of Henry I. A delegation waited on John on Twelfth-night and laid the stipulation before him. He was surprised and dismayed at this proof of their unanimity. After considerable delay and much hedging, he finally said he would give an answer by Easter, and that his sureties in the meantime would be the archbishop, William Marshal, and the Bishop of Ely.

Having thus gained for himself several months in which to strengthen
his position, he announced his intention of going to the Crusades. No one seems to have believed him, even though he took to appearing in public in the white robe with a cross on the sleeve. He swore homage to Innocent a second time, sealing his paper of submission with gold instead of wax. With great care and cunning he set about fortifying his castles and bringing in more mercenaries.

The barons were not backward in preparing for the struggle which lay ahead. Two thousand knights and their squires assembled at Brackley after Easter. A document termed “The Articles of the Barons” was sent to the King at Oxford with word that on this they would base their demands. The King brushed the paper aside. “Why don’t they ask my crown at once?” he cried. “Do they want to make me their slave?”