Читать книгу Magna Carta: A Commentary on the Great Charter of King John - William Sharp McKechnie - Страница 9

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Henry II. before his death had fulfilled the task of restoring order, to which destiny had called him. To effect this, he had brought to perfection machinery of government of rare excellence, and equally well adapted for purposes of taxation, of dispensing justice, and of general administration. Great as was the power for good of this new instrument in the hands of a wise and justice-loving king, it was equally powerful for evil in the hands of an arrogant and unjust, or even of a careless monarch. All the old enemies of the Crown had been crushed. Local government, as now systematized, formed a source of strength, not of weakness; while the Church, whose highest offices were now filled with officials trained in Henry’s own Household and Exchequer (ecclesiastics in name only, differing widely from saintly monks like Anselm), still remained the fast friend of the Crown. The monarchy was strong enough to defy any one section of the nation, and no inclination was yet apparent among the estates of the realm to make common cause against the throne.

The very thoroughness with which the Crown had surmounted all its early difficulties, induced in Henry’s successors, men born in the purple, an exaggerated feeling of security, and a tendency to overreach themselves by excessive arrogance. At the same time, the very abjectness of the various factors of the nation, now prostrate beneath the heel of the Crown, prepared them to sink their mutual suspicions and to form a tacit alliance in order to join issue with their common oppressor. Powers used moderately and on the whole for national ends by Henry, were abused for purely selfish ends by his sons in succession. Richard’s heavy taxation and contemptuous indifference to English interests gradually reconciled men’s minds to thoughts of change, and prepared the basis of a combined opposition to a power which threatened to grind all other powers to powder.

In no direction were these abuses felt so severely as in taxation. Financial machinery had been elaborated to perfection, and large additional sums could be squeezed from every class in the nation by an extra turn of the screw. Richard did not even require to incur the odium of this, since the ministers, who were his instruments, shielded him from the unpopularity of his measures, while he pursued his own good pleasure abroad in war and tournament without even condescending to visit the subjects he oppressed. Twice only, for a few months in each case, did Richard visit England during a reign of ten years.

In his absence new methods of taxation were devised, and new classes of property subjected to it; in especial, personal effects—merchandise and other chattels—only once before (in 1187 for the Saladin tithe) placed under contribution, were now made a regular source of royal revenue. The isolated precedent of Henry’s reign was gladly followed when an extraordinarily heavy burden had to be borne by the nation to produce the ransom exacted for Richard’s release from prison. The very heartiness with which England made sacrifices to succour the Monarch in his hour of need, was turned against the tax-payers. Richard showed no gratitude; and, being devoid of all kindly interest in his subjects, he argued that what had been paid once might equally well be paid again. Thus he formed exaggerated notions of the revenue to be extracted from England. From abroad he sent demand after demand to his overworked justiciars for ever-increasing sums of money. The chief lessons of the reign are connected with this excessive taxation, and the consequent discontent which prepared the way for the new grouping of political forces under John.

Some minor lessons may be noted:

(1) In Richard’s absence the odium for his exactions fell upon his ministers at home, who thus bore the burden meet for his own callous shoulders, while he enjoyed an undeserved popularity by reason of his bravery and achievements, exaggerated as these were by the halo of romance which surrounds a distant hero. Thus may be traced some dim foreshadowing of the doctrine of ministerial responsibility, although such analogies with modern politics must not be pushed too far.

(2) Throughout the reign, many parts of Henry’s system, technical details of taxation and reforms in the administration of justice, were elaborated by Archbishop Hubert Walter. Principles closely connected with trial by jury on the one hand and with election and representation on the other were being quietly developed—destined to play an important rôle in other ages.

(3) Richard is sometimes said to have inaugurated the golden age of municipalities. Undoubtedly many charters still extant bear witness to the lavish hand with which he granted, on paper at least, franchises and privileges to the nascent towns. John Richard Green finds the true interest of the reign not in the King’s Crusades and French wars, so much as in his fostering care over the growth of municipal enterprise. The importance of the consequences of such a policy is not diminished by the fact that Richard acted from sordid motives—selling privileges, too often of a purely nominal character, as he sold everything else which would fetch a price.

The death of Richard on 6th April, 1199, brought with it at least one important change; England was no longer to be governed by an absentee. John, as impatient of control as he was incompetent, endeavoured to shake himself free from the restraints of powerful ministers, and determined to conduct the work of government in his own way. The result was an abrupt end to the progress made in the previous reign towards ministerial responsibility. The odium formerly exhausting itself on the justiciars of Richard was now expended on John. While, previously, men had sought redress in a change of minister, such vain expectations could no longer deceive. A new element of bitterness was added to injuries long resented, and the nobles who felt the pinch of heavy taxation were compelled to seek redress in an entirely new direction. All the forces of discontent played openly around the throne.

As is usual at the opening of a new reign, the discontented hoped that a change of sovereign would bring some relief. The excessive taxation of the late reign had been the result of exceptional circumstances. It was expected that the new King would revert to the less burdensome scale of his father’s financial measures. Such hopes were quickly disappointed. John’s needs proved as great as Richard’s, and the money he obtained was used for purposes that appealed to no one but himself. The excessive exactions demanded both in money and in service, coupled with the unpopular uses to which these were put, form the keynote of the whole reign. They form also the background of Magna Carta.

The reign falls naturally into three periods; the years in which John waged a losing war with the King of France (1199-1206), the quarrel with the Pope (1206-13), the great struggle of John with the barons (1213-16).

The first seven years were for England comparatively uneventful, except in the gradual deepening of disgust with John and all his ways. The continental dominions were ripe for losing, and John precipitated the catastrophe by his injustice and dilatoriness. The ease with which Normandy was lost shows something more than the incapacity of the King as a ruler and leader—John Softsword as contemporary writers contemptuously call him. It shows that the feudal army of Normandy had come to regard the English Sovereign as an alien monarch, and refused to fight in support of the rule of a foreigner. The unwillingness of the English nobles to succour John actively has also its significance. The descendants of the men who helped William I. to conquer England had now lost all interest in the land from which they came. They were now purely English landowners, and very different from the original Norman baronage whose interests, like their estates, had been equally divided on both sides of the Channel.

The death of Archbishop Hubert Walter in July, 1205, deprived King John of the services of the most experienced statesman in England. It did more, for it marked the termination of the long friendship between the English Crown and the National Church. Its immediate effect was to create a vacancy, the filling of which led to a bitter quarrel with Rome.

John failed, as usual, to recognize the merits of abler men, and saw in the death of his great Justiciar and Archbishop only the removal of an unwelcome restraint, and the opening to the Crown of a desirable piece of patronage. He prepared to strain to the utmost his rights in the election of a successor to the See of Canterbury, in favour of one of his own creatures, a certain John de Grey, already by royal influence Bishop of Norwich. Unexpected opposition to his will was offered by the canons of the Cathedral Church, who determined on a bold policy, namely, to turn their nominal right of canonical election into a reality, and to appoint their own nominee, without waiting either for the King’s approval or the co-operation of the suffragan bishops of the Province, who, during the last three vacancies, had put forth a claim to participate in the election, and had invariably used their influence on behalf of the King’s nominee. Reginald, the sub-prior, was secretly elected by the monks, and hurried abroad to obtain confirmation at Rome before the appointment was made public. Reginald’s vanity prevented his keeping his pledge of secrecy, and a rumour reached the ear of John, who brought pressure to bear on the monks, now frightened at their own temerity, and secured de Grey’s appointment in a second election. The Bishop of Norwich was actually enthroned at Canterbury, and invested by the King with the temporalities of the See. All parties now sent representatives to Rome. This somewhat petty squabble benefited none of the original disputants; for the astute Innocent III. was quick to see an opportunity for papal aggrandisement. Both elections were set aside by decree of the Papal Curia, and the emissaries of the various parties were coerced or persuaded to appoint there and then in the Pope’s presence the Pope’s own nominee, a certain Cardinal, English-born, but hitherto little known in England, Stephen Langton by name, destined to play an important part in the future history of the land of his birth.

John refused to view this triumph of papal arrogance in the light of a compromise—the view diplomatically suggested by Innocent. The King, with the hot blood common to his race, and the bad judgment peculiar to himself, rushed headlong into a quarrel with Rome which he was incapable of carrying to a successful issue. The details of the struggle, the interdicts and excommunications hurled by the Pope, and John’s measures of retaliation against the unfortunate English clergy, need not be discussed, since they do not directly affect the main plot which culminated at Runnymede.

John was not without some measure of sagacity of a selfish and short-sighted sort, but was completely devoid of far-seeing statecraft. One day he was to reap the fruits of this quarrel in bitter humiliation and in the defeat of his most cherished aims; but, for the moment, the breach with Rome seemed to lead to a triumph for the King. The papal encroachments furnished him with a suitable pretext for confiscating the property of the clergy. Thus his Exchequer was amply replenished, while he was able for a time to conciliate his most inveterate opponents, the Northern barons, by remitting during several years the hated burden of a scutage, which, in other periods of his reign, tended to become a yearly imposition. John had no intention, however, to forego his right to resume the practice of annual scutages whenever it suited him to do so. On the contrary, he executed a measure intended to make them more remunerative in the future. This was the great Inquest of Service ordered on 1st June, 1212.^[4]

During these years, however, John temporarily relaxed the pressure on his feudal tenants. His doing so failed to gain back any of their goodwill, while he broadened the basis of future resistance by shifting his oppressions to the clergy and through them to the poor.

Some incidents of the autumn of 1212 require brief notice, as well from their own inherent interest as because they find an echo in the words of Magna Carta. Serious trouble had arisen with Wales. Llywelyn (who had married John’s natural daughter Joan, and had consolidated his power under protection of the English King) now seized the occasion to cross the border, while John was preparing his schemes for a new continental expedition. The King changed his plans, and prepared to lead his troops to Wales instead of France. A muster was summoned for September at Nottingham, and John went thither to meet them. Before tasting meat, as we are told in Roger of Wendover’s graphic narrative, he hanged twenty-eight Welsh hostages, boys of noble family, whom he held as sureties that Llywelyn would keep the peace.^[5]

Almost immediately thereafter, two messengers arrived simultaneously from Scotland and from Wales with unexpected tidings. John’s daughter, Joan, and the King of Scots, each independently warned him that his English barons were prepared to revolt, under shelter of the Pope’s absolution from their allegiance, and either to slay him or betray him to the Welsh. The King dared not afford them so good an opportunity. In a panic he disbanded the feudal levies; and, accompanied only by his mercenaries, moved slowly back to London.^[6]

Two of the barons, Robert Fitz-Walter, afterwards the Marshal of the army which, later on, opposed John at Runnymede, and Eustace de Vesci, showed their knowledge of John’s suspicions (if they did not justify them) by withdrawing secretly from his Court and taking to flight. The King caused them to be outlawed in their absence, and thereafter seized their estates and demolished their castles.^[7]

These events of September, 1212, rudely shook John out of the false sense of security in which he had wrapped himself a few months earlier. In the Spring of the same year, he had still seemed to enjoy the full tide of prosperity; and he must have been a bold prophet who dared to foretell, as Peter of Wakefield did foretell, the speedy downfall of the King—a prophecy the main purport of which (although not the details), was actually accomplished.^[8]

John’s apparent security was deceptive; he had underestimated the powers arrayed against him. Before the end of that year he had realized, in a sudden flash of illumination, that the Pope was too strong for him, circumstanced as he then was. It may well be that, if John’s throne had rested on a solid basis of his subjects’ love, he might have defied with impunity the thunders of Rome; but, although he was still an unrestrained despot, his despotism now rested on a hollow foundation. His barons, particularly the eager spirits of the north, refrained from open rebellion merely until a fit opportunity should be offered them. The papal excommunication of a King relieved his subjects of their oaths of allegiance, and this might render their deliberate revolt dangerous and perhaps fatal. At this critical juncture Innocent played his leading card, inviting the King of France to act as the executor of the sentence of excommunication against his brother King. John at once realized that the time had come to make his peace with Rome.

Perhaps we should admire the sudden inspiration which showed the King that his game had been played and lost, while we regret the humiliation of his surrender, and the former blindness which could not see a little way ahead.

On 13th May, 1213, John met Pandulf, the papal legate, and accepted unconditionally his demands, the same which he had refused contemptuously some months before. Full reparation was to be made to the Church. Stephen Langton was to be received as archbishop in all honour with his banished bishops, friends and kinsmen. All church property was to be restored, with compensation for damage done. One of the minor conditions of John’s absolution was the restoration to Eustace de Vesci and Robert Fitz-Walter of the estates which they persuaded Innocent had been forfeited because of their loyalty to Rome.^[9]

John’s humiliation did not stop even here. Two days later he resigned the Crowns of England and Ireland, and received them again as the Pope’s feudatory, promising to perform personal homage should occasion allow. Such was the price which the King was now ready to pay for the Pope’s active alliance against his enemies at home and abroad, the former submission having merely bought off the excommunication. John hoped thus to disentangle himself from his growing difficulties, and so to be free to avenge himself on his baronial enemies. The surrender of the Crown was embodied in a formal legal document which bears to be made by John, “with the common council of our barons.” Were these merely words of form? They may have been so when first used; yet two years later the envoys of the insurgent barons claimed at Rome that the credit (so they now represented it) for the whole transaction lay with them. Perhaps the barons did consent to the surrender, thinking that to make the Pope lord paramount of England would protect the inhabitants from the irresponsible tyranny of John; while John hoped (with better reason as events proved) that the Pope’s friendship would increase his ability to work his evil will upon his enemies. In any case, no active opposition or protest seems to have been raised by any one at the time of the surrender. This step, so repugnant to later writers, seems not to have been regarded by contemporaries as a disgrace. Matthew Paris, indeed, writing in the next generation, describes it as “a thing to be detested for all time”; but then events had ripened in Matthew’s day, and he was a keen politician rather than an impartial onlooker.^[10]

Stephen Langton, now assured of a welcome to the high office into which he had been thrust against John’s will, landed at Dover and was received by the King at Winchester on 20th July, 1213. John swore on the Gospels to cherish and defend Holy Church, to restore the good laws of Edward, and to render to all men their rights, repeating practically the words of the coronation oath. In addition, he promised to make reparation for all property taken from the Church or churchmen. This oath, with its accompanying promise, was the condition on which he was to be absolved, provisionally by Langton, and more formally by a legate, to be sent from Rome specially for that purpose.