forfeited all his French possessions. The Bretons took up arms in the name of Eleanor, the sister of Arthur: and, while John first remained inactive at Rouen, and then retired to England (Dec. 1203), Philip easily overran Normandy; and the capture of Rouen (July 1204) effected the reunion of that province to France, which was followed by the submission of Anjou, Maine, Touraine, and part of Poitou. After some fruitless efforts to recover the lost French provinces, John consented to a truce with Philip, renouncing all the country north of the Loire, 1206.

The loss of Normandy was soon followed by a no less disastrous conflict with the Papal See, which was then occupied by the bold and ambitious Innocent III. On the death of Hubert archbishop of Canterbury, in 1205, the pope set aside two rival candidates for the primacy, and commanded the monks of Christchurch, Canterbury, to elect STEPHEN LANGTON, an Englishman, who had been brought up in France. The king avenged the usurpation by expelling the monks of Christchurch; and the pope replied by laying England under an interdict (March 23, 1208). By this act the people were deprived of the offices of religion, except baptism, confession, and the absolution of the dying. Even the dead were not suffered to be interred in consecrated ground, but were thrown into ditches by the wayside. Instead of submitting, John attacked the property and even the persons of the clergy, and this all the more when the pope followed up the interdict by a sentence of excommunication against the king himself (Nov. 1209). The terrified clergy neither dared to obey the interdict, nor to publish the sentence of excommunication. The king showed equal obstinacy in putting down the discontents of his barons, many of whom fled to Ireland and Scotland. John marched northwards and received tribute and homage from the Scotch king (Aug. 1209). Next year (1210) he invaded Ireland, and reduced to obedience the English settlers, who had been aiming at independence; and the year after he penetrated into Wales as far as Snowdon, and received the submission of the principal chiefs (1211). These successes were attended with great cruelties, according to the chroniclers, who were John's bitter enemies. Their picture of the king's hateful character is probably faithful; but the events of these three years prove that he was not destitute of energy and courage.

At length the pope produced the last weapon of his spiritual armoury. In 1212 he absolved the English from their allegiance to John, and called on the king of France to execute the sentence of deposition. Philip collected a force for the invasion of England, and John saw that the time was come when he must yield. His submission was carried to the length of resigning his kingdom to

the Holy See, from which, in the person of the legate Pandolf, he received back his crown anew, to hold it, with all the rites of homage paid to a feudal lord, as a vassal, by the payment of an annual tribute of 1000 marks (1213).

John now turned boldly upon the king of France. The earl of Salisbury attacked in the French harbours the ships collected for the invasion, and burned Dieppe. John carried the war into the French territories which Philip had wrested from him (1214); but Philip's victory over the emperor Otho at Bouvines, in Flanders, induced John to conclude a peace at Chinon, Sept. 18, 1214.

Thus ended the second act in the drama of John's reign. The third was as humiliating to himself as the loss of his French provinces or the surrender of his crown to the pope; but it is for ever glorious and memorable in English history; for now was laid, by the hands of this unworthy and unwilling sovereign, the foundationstone of the whole fabric of our liberty.

His rule had by this time become intolerable to every class of his subjects. The Church had found in him a determined enemy. The barons saw their privileges invaded by his tyranny, and the honour of their families outraged by his vices. The commons were treated like serfs, and driven to become outlaws. The property of all classes was subjected to endless exactions. The case of the Jews, who were beyond the protection of the law, served to show the lengths to which he could proceed in extorting money by cruel tortures for example, a Jew of Bristol, refusing to give up his treasures, was thrown by the king's orders into a dungeon, and one of his teeth was wrenched out daily, until he had lost seven, when he gave in.

The barons of England, who had long cherished the desire to curb the king's tyranny, saw the necessity of redressing the wrongs of the people, as well as their own. They found a head in Stephen Langton, archbishop of Canterbury, and a leader in William earl of Pembroke. Their first demand was for the observance of Henry I.'s Charter, a copy of which had been discovered by Langton; and next, at an assembly convened by the primate at St. Edmondsbury, in Suffolk, they framed their requirements for a redress of grievances (Nov. 20, 1214). The king tried in vain to buy over the clergy by a charter, in which he yielded up to them the election of church dignitaries. The barons presented their demands to John at London (Jan. 6, 1215); and, as he deferred his answer, and meanwhile obtained a papal censure against them, they assembled in open war at Stamford, and marched on London, entering the city on the 24th of May, 1215. The king, deserted by all but a few knights, consented to an interview with the insurgents at Runny

mede, a meadow on the banks of the Thames, near Windsor; and on this ever-memorable spot he signed, on the 15th of June, the MAGNA CHARTA or GREAT CHARTER, an instrument which has never ceased to deserve that name, as the chief foundation of the constitutional liberties of the people of England.

The clauses of the Charter in which the barons stipulated for their privileges have now lost their importance, in comparison with those which secured the persons and property of all freemen from the arbitrary power of the crown. The following are the words of the Charter, as confirmed by Henry III. :-No FREEMAN SHALL BE TAKEN OR IMPRISONED, OR BE DISSEISED OF HIS FREEHOLD OR LIBERTIES OR FREE CUSTOMS, OR BE OUTLAWED, OR EXILED, OR ANY OTHERWISE DESTROYED; NOR WILL WE PASS UPON HIM, NOR SEND UPON HIM, BUT BY LAWFUL JUDGMENT OF HIS PEERS, OR BY THE LAW OF THE LAND. WE WILL SELL TO NO MAN, WE WILL NOT DENY OR DELAY TO ANY MAN, JUSTICE OR RIGHT. In these words were established the great principles of the security of personal liberty by the process which was afterwards more definitely embodied in the writ of Habeas Corpus, and that of the right of every accused person to be tried by a jury of his peers. The third great principle, of no taxation without representation, was embodied in the provision that no scutage or "aid" should be imposed without the consent of the great council of the kingdom (except in certain matters personal to the crown); while the mode of constituting this council was laid down, namely, that the superior clergy and nobles should be summoned by the king's writ, and all other tenants in chief by the sheriff. The Charter also secured the liberties of London and the other great cities, and protected the people, of every class, from excessive fines; nor did it overlook the meanest of the people, for it provided that even villeins were not to be deprived of their implements of husbandry.

The GREAT CHARTER has always remained the fundamental law of the constitutional monarchy of England. It was confirmed, in succeeding reigns, by no less than 38 solemn ratifications. The most important of these were in the 1st, 2nd, and 9th years of Henry III., the last being the form in which it stands to this day unaltered in our statute-book. There were three other ratifications by Henry III., three by Edward I., fifteen by Edward III., six by Richard II., six by Henry IV., one by Henry V., and one by Henry VI. The provision against taxation without the consent of parliament, though removed by Henry III. from the Charter, was confirmed by a special statute in the 25th year of Edward I.

But, besides the special provisions of the Charter, the very fact of its exaction from the king was a consecration of the still deeper

fundamental principle, on which the English monarchy itself has always been based, that the crown is held only by the consent of the people, and on the condition that the sovereign shall respect their rights and liberties, and keep his own prerogative within the limits of the law.

To secure the observance of the Charter the king was obliged to give the barons possession of London, and the custody of the Tower to the archbishop of Canterbury; and twenty-five of the barons were appointed as conservators of the public liberties, with full power over all classes of the people. The king's first act was, in violation of an express oath, to obtain a papal bull annulling the Charter (Sept. 13), while he secretly enlisted a band of foreign mercenaries. With these he overran the kingdom, laying it waste like an enemy's country. The barons, whom his perfidy had taken by surprise, cast off their allegiance, and offered the crown to Louis, the son of Philip king of France. Louis landed at Sandwich, May 21, 1216, took Rochester, and advanced to London, where he received the homage of the barons, June 2. A war ensued, with successes and reverses on both sides. John drew his forces to a head in Lincolnshire, while Louis was detained before Dover, which he had vowed to take; but an accident changed the whole state of affairs. After staying at Lynn, which derived from his favour its appellation of King's Lynn, John was marching into Lincolnshire round the Wash, when, keeping too near its treacherous shores, he lost his carriages, treasure, baggage, and regalia. His health, already much impaired by anxiety, yielded to this final blow; and he reached the castle of Newark, only to expire there, on the 17th of October, 1216, in the 49th year of his age, and the 18th of his reign.

He bequeathed his body to St. Wulstan, the patron saint of the cathedral of Worcester, where he lies beneath a splendid tomb; and to his country the memory of one of the worst men and most tyrannical kings that ever filled her throne, but whose very vices and weakness gave the opportunity for merging the sovereignty of the Norman dynasty in a new constitutional kingdom. This great change was attended by one of no less consequence in the social condition of the people; for it was in the reign of John that the amalgamation of the Normans and Saxons into one people was almost completed. From John also the city of London obtained the right of electing its may or annually, and the "Old London Bridge was finished, in place of the former wooden bridge over the Thames.

HENRY III., of WINCHESTER, the elder of John's two sons, occupied the throne for a longer period than any English king, except George III., but there are few reigns so barren of events. A boy of nine years old at his father's death, he was in the hands of the wise and brave earl of Pembroke, who had him crowned at Gloucester (Oct. 28, 1216), when the young king did homage to the pope for his dominions.

Pembroke, appointed protector by a council of the barons at Bristol (Nov. 12), confirmed the Great Charter, thereby conciliating the people and gaining over many of the insurgent barons. Louis and his adherents were excommunicated by the papal legate for