Character It belongs to the few in history or in human of John. nature of which the infamy is altogether black

both fides.

and unredeemed. The qualities which degraded his youth grew with his years; combined with them, he had just enough of the ambition of his race to bring forth more ftrongly the pufillanimity of his fpirit; and thus he was infolent and mean, at once the most abject and the most arrogant of men. The pitilefs cruelties recorded of him furpass belief; and the reckless madness with which he rushed into his quarrels, was only exceeded by his impotent cowardice when refistance showed His defer- its front. He deferted the people when the tion of people joined him against the church, and he deferted the church when the church joined him against the people. Yet, what resulted from the very vice and falfehood of fo despicable a nature was in itself the reverse of evil. A man more able, though with an equal love of tyranny, would have hufbanded, Ufes of a and kept, his power; this man could only feel bad king. that he exifted when he knew that he was trampling on his fellow-men, and, making his power intolerable, he rifked and loft it. The conclufion which would infer that with the barons, and not with the people, the substantial benefit remained, is far too haftily formed. What the What, in its beginning, was the claim of one triumph of the powerful faction in the realm as against its Barons feudal lord, became in the end a demand for involved. rights to be guaranteed to the general com

munity. It was but a month before the gathering at Runnymede that an unavailing attempt was made to detach the greater barons

from the national confederacy, by offering to themselves and their immediate followers what the Great Charter was to fecure to every free

man.

its refults.

I have shown that party fpirit had now arisen Party in England. From it have fprung fcenes and spirit and compromises often neither just nor honourable; but with it have been affociated, in very memorable periods of history, the liberties and political advances of the English people. The determined wish of a large fection of the nobles to degrade the pofition and humble the pride of their fovereign, became obvious at the outfet of John's reign. When he began his continental English King wars, he was master of the whole French coaft, tripped of from the borders of Flanders to the foot of the French

Pyrenees; when three years had paffed, the conquefts. beft portion of that territory was irrevocably loft to him, and, after a feparation of three hundred years, Normandy, Anjou, Maine, and Touraine, were reannexed to the French crown. Nor were any of his complaints fo loud and bitter, during the progrefs of thefe events, as that which was implied in his reproach that the English nobles had forfaken him. They cer- Conduct tainly faw pafs into fubjection to France thofe of the large and opulent provinces fo long won and guarded by the fwords of their fathers, and they made no fign of refiftance. But this had alfo a deeper fignificance than mere disgust with John. They had elected their country. They were no longer foreign proprietors on a Growth foil which was not their own; they were Eng- of national lishmen, refolved to caft their fortunes and their fate with England. Soon after this,

Barons.

feeling.

indeed, they raifed a counter-cry to that of their recreant King, accufing him of foreign favouritifm. With the name, opprobrious now, of foreigner, they branded the Angevin, the Norman, and the Poitevin nobles whom he had brought into England at the clofe of Common his French wars; and whom he now delighted caufe to parade about his perfon, to load with against foreigners. dignities and wealth, and to encourage in their

vigorous efforts to plunder and opprefs the native population. Even the French hiftorian of the Norman Conqueft is here fain to admit that the conquering lord and the conquered peafant had found a point of contact and a common fympathy. He can no longer refift the conclufion, that in the foil of England there was at length germinating a national spirit common to all who traverfed it. Without doubt it Alliance was fo. Nor was there a new fine now levied of lords on one of the old domains, or a new toll on and citione of the old bridges or highways, that did not bring the English baron and lord of the manor nearer in his interefts and rights to the English farmer and citizen.

zens.

1213.

King's The next step in John's degradation comfurrender pleted the rupture with his barons and carried to Pope. over the people to their fide. From the attempted overthrow of all government, by the furrender of England to the Pope, dates the firft fenfible advance in our annals to anything like a government under general and equitable forms of law. There is not an English freeman living in this nineteenth century, who may not trace in fome degree a portion of the liberty he enjoys to the day when

Freedom'

debt to

John.

against

King John did his best to lay his country at the feet of a foreign prieft, and make every one of her children as much a flave as himíelf. From that day the grand confederacy against Confedethe King took its really formidable, because racy now unwavering fhape; and what was beft in King. England joined and ftrengthened it. The concentration of its purposes was mainly the work of Stephen de Langton, and forms his claim to eternal memory. Rome never clad Character of Langin her purple a man of nobler nature, or one ton. who more refolutely, when he left the councils of the Vatican, seemed to have left behind him alfo whatever might impinge upon his obligations as an Englishman. No name ftands upon our records worthier of national honour. In an unlettered age, he had cultivated with fuccefs not alone the highest learning, but the accomplishments and graces of literature; and at a time apparently the most unfavourable to His ferthe growth of freedom, he impelled exifting dif- vices to English contents, which but for him might have wafted freedom. themselves in cafual conflict, to the establishment of that deep and broad distinction between a free and a defpotic monarchy, of which our hiftory, through all the varying fortunes and difafters that awaited it, never afterwards loft the trace. Even while he perfonally controlled the treacherous violence of the King, he gave fteady direction to the ftill wavering defigns of the Barons; and among the fecurities obtained Tuesday on the first day at Runnymede for due obfer- June, vance of the bond or deed which the King 1215. was to be called upon to fign, probably none at Runnyinspired greater confidence than that which mede.

16th of

First day

Langton.

Faith in configned for a certain specified time to Langton's cuftody the Tower and the defences of London. This and other guarantees conceded, the various heads of grievance and propofed means of redrefs were one by one difcuffed; and, the document in which they were reduced to legal fhape having Fourth been formally admitted by the Sovereign, on the fourth day from the opening of the conference, Friday the 19th of June, 1215, there was unrolled, read out aloud, and fubfcribed by John, the inftrument which at last embodied, in fifty-feven chapters, the completed demands of the confederacy, and is immortalised in history as the Great Charter.

day: Charter figned.

Its general

The Great Charter, it is hardly neceffary to character. fay, had nothing to do with the creation of our liberties. Its inexpreffible value was, that Confirma-it corrected, confirmed, and re-established antion of cient and indifputable, though continually liberties. violated, public rights; that it abolished the

existing

worft of the abufes which had crept into exifting laws; that it gave an improved tone, by giving a definite and fubftantial form, to future popular defires and aspirations; that, without attempting to frame a new code, or even to inculcate any grand or general principles of legiflation, it did in effect accomplish both, because, in infifting upon the just discharge of Principles fpecial feudal relations, it affirmed a principle latent in it. of equity which was found generally applicable far beyond them; that it turned into a tangible poffeffion what before was fleeting and undetermined; and that, throughout the cen