A Child's History of England

by Dickens, Charles

  obliged to receive them, they told him roundly they would not

  believe him unless Stephen Langton became a surety that he would

  keep his word. When he took the Cross to invest himself with some

  interest, and belong to something that was received with favour,

  Stephen Langton was still immovable. When he appealed to the Pope,

  and the Pope wrote to Stephen Langton in behalf of his new

  favourite, Stephen Langton was deaf, even to the Pope himself, and

  saw before him nothing but the welfare of England and the crimes of

  the English King.

  At Easter-time, the Barons assembled at Stamford, in Lincolnshire,

  in proud array, and, marching near to Oxford where the King was,

  delivered into the hands of Stephen Langton and two others, a list

  of grievances. 'And these,' they said, 'he must redress, or we

  will do it for ourselves!' When Stephen Langton told the King as

  much, and read the list to him, he went half mad with rage. But

  that did him no more good than his afterwards trying to pacify the

  Barons with lies. They called themselves and their followers, 'The

  army of God and the Holy Church.' Marching through the country,

  with the people thronging to them everywhere (except at

  Northampton, where they failed in an attack upon the castle), they

  at last triumphantly set up their banner in London itself, whither

  the whole land, tired of the tyrant, seemed to flock to join them.

  Seven knights alone, of all the knights in England, remained with

  the King; who, reduced to this strait, at last sent the Earl of

  Pembroke to the Barons to say that he approved of everything, and

  would meet them to sign their charter when they would. 'Then,'

  said the Barons, 'let the day be the fifteenth of June, and the

  place, Runny-Mead.'

  On Monday, the fifteenth of June, one thousand two hundred and

  fourteen, the King came from Windsor Castle, and the Barons came

  from the town of Staines, and they met on Runny-Mead, which is

  still a pleasant meadow by the Thames, where rushes grow in the

  clear water of the winding river, and its banks are green with

  grass and trees. On the side of the Barons, came the General of

  their army, ROBERT FITZ-WALTER, and a great concourse of the

  nobility of England. With the King, came, in all, some four-andtwenty

  persons of any note, most of whom despised him, and were

  merely his advisers in form. On that great day, and in that great

  company, the King signed MAGNA CHARTA - the great charter of

  England - by which he pledged himself to maintain the Church in its

  rights; to relieve the Barons of oppressive obligations as vassals

  of the Crown - of which the Barons, in their turn, pledged

  themselves to relieve THEIR vassals, the people; to respect the

  liberties of London and all other cities and boroughs; to protect

  foreign merchants who came to England; to imprison no man without a

  fair trial; and to sell, delay, or deny justice to none. As the

  Barons knew his falsehood well, they further required, as their

  securities, that he should send out of his kingdom all his foreign

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  troops; that for two months they should hold possession of the city

  of London, and Stephen Langton of the Tower; and that five-andtwenty

  of their body, chosen by themselves, should be a lawful

  committee to watch the keeping of the charter, and to make war upon

  him if he broke it.

  All this he was obliged to yield. He signed the charter with a

  smile, and, if he could have looked agreeable, would have done so,

  as he departed from the splendid assembly. When he got home to

  Windsor Castle, he was quite a madman in his helpless fury. And he

  broke the charter immediately afterwards.

  He sent abroad for foreign soldiers, and sent to the Pope for help,

  and plotted to take London by surprise, while the Barons should be

  holding a great tournament at Stamford, which they had agreed to

  hold there as a celebration of the charter. The Barons, however,

  found him out and put it off. Then, when the Barons desired to see

  him and tax him with his treachery, he made numbers of appointments

  with them, and kept none, and shifted from place to place, and was

  constantly sneaking and skulking about. At last he appeared at

  Dover, to join his foreign soldiers, of whom numbers came into his

  pay; and with them he besieged and took Rochester Castle, which was

  occupied by knights and soldiers of the Barons. He would have

  hanged them every one; but the leader of the foreign soldiers,

  fearful of what the English people might afterwards do to him,

  interfered to save the knights; therefore the King was fain to

  satisfy his vengeance with the death of all the common men. Then,

  he sent the Earl of Salisbury, with one portion of his army, to

  ravage the eastern part of his own dominions, while he carried fire

  and slaughter into the northern part; torturing, plundering,

  killing, and inflicting every possible cruelty upon the people;

  and, every morning, setting a worthy example to his men by setting

  fire, with his own monster-hands, to the house where he had slept

  last night. Nor was this all; for the Pope, coming to the aid of

  his precious friend, laid the kingdom under an Interdict again,

  because the people took part with the Barons. It did not much

  matter, for the people had grown so used to it now, that they had

  begun to think nothing about it. It occurred to them - perhaps to

  Stephen Langton too - that they could keep their churches open, and

  ring their bells, without the Pope's permission as well as with it.

  So, they tried the experiment - and found that it succeeded

  perfectly.

  It being now impossible to bear the country, as a wilderness of

  cruelty, or longer to hold any terms with such a forsworn outlaw of

  a King, the Barons sent to Louis, son of the French monarch, to

  offer him the English crown. Caring as little for the Pope's

  excommunication of him if he accepted the offer, as it is possible

  his father may have cared for the Pope's forgiveness of his sins,

  he landed at Sandwich (King John immediately running away from

  Dover, where he happened to be), and went on to London. The

  Scottish King, with whom many of the Northern English Lords had

  taken refuge; numbers of the foreign soldiers, numbers of the

  Barons, and numbers of the people went over to him every day; -

  King John, the while, continually running away in all directions.

  The career of Louis was checked however, by the suspicions of the

  Barons, founded on the dying declaration of a French Lord, that

  when the kingdom was conquered he was sworn to banish them as

  traitors, and to give their estates to some of his own Nobles.

  Rather than suffer this, some of the Barons hesitated: others even

  went over to King John.

  It seemed to be the turning-point of King John's fortunes, for, in

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  his savage and murderous course, he had now taken some towns and

 
; met with some successes. But, happily for England and humanity,

  his death was near. Crossing a dangerous quicksand, called the

  Wash, not very far from Wisbeach, the tide came up and nearly

  drowned his army. He and his soldiers escaped; but, looking back

  from the shore when he was safe, he saw the roaring water sweep

  down in a torrent, overturn the waggons, horses, and men, that

  carried his treasure, and engulf them in a raging whirlpool from

  which nothing could be delivered.

  Cursing, and swearing, and gnawing his fingers, he went on to

  Swinestead Abbey, where the monks set before him quantities of

  pears, and peaches, and new cider - some say poison too, but there

  is very little reason to suppose so - of which he ate and drank in

  an immoderate and beastly way. All night he lay ill of a burning

  fever, and haunted with horrible fears. Next day, they put him in

  a horse-litter, and carried him to Sleaford Castle, where he passed

  another night of pain and horror. Next day, they carried him, with

  greater difficulty than on the day before, to the castle of Newark

  upon Trent; and there, on the eighteenth of October, in the fortyninth

  year of his age, and the seventeenth of his vile reign, was

  an end of this miserable brute.

  CHAPTER XV - ENGLAND UNDER HENRY THE THIRD, CALLED, OF WINCHESTER

  IF any of the English Barons remembered the murdered Arthur's

  sister, Eleanor the fair maid of Brittany, shut up in her convent

  at Bristol, none among them spoke of her now, or maintained her

  right to the Crown. The dead Usurper's eldest boy, HENRY by name,

  was taken by the Earl of Pembroke, the Marshal of England, to the

  city of Gloucester, and there crowned in great haste when he was

  only ten years old. As the Crown itself had been lost with the

  King's treasure in the raging water, and as there was no time to

  make another, they put a circle of plain gold upon his head

  instead. 'We have been the enemies of this child's father,' said

  Lord Pembroke, a good and true gentleman, to the few Lords who were

  present, 'and he merited our ill-will; but the child himself is

  innocent, and his youth demands our friendship and protection.'

  Those Lords felt tenderly towards the little boy, remembering their

  own young children; and they bowed their heads, and said, 'Long

  live King Henry the Third!'

  Next, a great council met at Bristol, revised Magna Charta, and

  made Lord Pembroke Regent or Protector of England, as the King was

  too young to reign alone. The next thing to be done, was to get

  rid of Prince Louis of France, and to win over those English Barons

  who were still ranged under his banner. He was strong in many

  parts of England, and in London itself; and he held, among other

  places, a certain Castle called the Castle of Mount Sorel, in

  Leicestershire. To this fortress, after some skirmishing and

  truce-making, Lord Pembroke laid siege. Louis despatched an army

  of six hundred knights and twenty thousand soldiers to relieve it.

  Lord Pembroke, who was not strong enough for such a force, retired

  with all his men. The army of the French Prince, which had marched

  there with fire and plunder, marched away with fire and plunder,

  and came, in a boastful swaggering manner, to Lincoln. The town

  submitted; but the Castle in the town, held by a brave widow lady,

  named NICHOLA DE CAMVILLE (whose property it was), made such a

  sturdy resistance, that the French Count in command of the army of

  the French Prince found it necessary to besiege this Castle. While

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  he was thus engaged, word was brought to him that Lord Pembroke,

  with four hundred knights, two hundred and fifty men with crossbows,

  and a stout force both of horse and foot, was marching

  towards him. 'What care I?' said the French Count. 'The

  Englishman is not so mad as to attack me and my great army in a

  walled town!' But the Englishman did it for all that, and did it -

  not so madly but so wisely, that he decoyed the great army into the

  narrow, ill-paved lanes and byways of Lincoln, where its horsesoldiers

  could not ride in any strong body; and there he made such

  havoc with them, that the whole force surrendered themselves

  prisoners, except the Count; who said that he would never yield to

  any English traitor alive, and accordingly got killed. The end of

  this victory, which the English called, for a joke, the Fair of

  Lincoln, was the usual one in those times - the common men were

  slain without any mercy, and the knights and gentlemen paid ransom

  and went home.

  The wife of Louis, the fair BLANCHE OF CASTILE, dutifully equipped

  a fleet of eighty good ships, and sent it over from France to her

  husband's aid. An English fleet of forty ships, some good and some

  bad, gallantly met them near the mouth of the Thames, and took or

  sunk sixty-five in one fight. This great loss put an end to the

  French Prince's hopes. A treaty was made at Lambeth, in virtue of

  which the English Barons who had remained attached to his cause

  returned to their allegiance, and it was engaged on both sides that

  the Prince and all his troops should retire peacefully to France.

  It was time to go; for war had made him so poor that he was obliged

  to borrow money from the citizens of London to pay his expenses

  home.

  Lord Pembroke afterwards applied himself to governing the country

  justly, and to healing the quarrels and disturbances that had

  arisen among men in the days of the bad King John. He caused Magna

  Charta to be still more improved, and so amended the Forest Laws

  that a Peasant was no longer put to death for killing a stag in a

  Royal Forest, but was only imprisoned. It would have been well for

  England if it could have had so good a Protector many years longer,

  but that was not to be. Within three years after the young King's

  Coronation, Lord Pembroke died; and you may see his tomb, at this

  day, in the old Temple Church in London.

  The Protectorship was now divided. PETER DE ROCHES, whom King John

  had made Bishop of Winchester, was entrusted with the care of the

  person of the young sovereign; and the exercise of the Royal

  authority was confided to EARL HUBERT DE BURGH. These two

  personages had from the first no liking for each other, and soon

  became enemies. When the young King was declared of age, Peter de

  Roches, finding that Hubert increased in power and favour, retired

  discontentedly, and went abroad. For nearly ten years afterwards

  Hubert had full sway alone.

  But ten years is a long time to hold the favour of a King. This

  King, too, as he grew up, showed a strong resemblance to his

  father, in feebleness, inconsistency, and irresolution. The best

  that can be said of him is that he was not cruel. De Roches coming

  home again, after ten years, and being a novelty, the King began to

  favour him and to look coldly on Hubert. Wanting money besides,

  and having made Hubert rich, he began to dislike Hubert. At last

  he was made to believe
, or pretended to believe, that Hubert had

  misappropriated some of the Royal treasure; and ordered him to

  furnish an account of all he had done in his administration.

  Besides which, the foolish charge was brought against Hubert that

  he had made himself the King's favourite by magic. Hubert very

  well knowing that he could never defend himself against such

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  nonsense, and that his old enemy must be determined on his ruin,

  instead of answering the charges fled to Merton Abbey. Then the

  King, in a violent passion, sent for the Mayor of London, and said

  to the Mayor, 'Take twenty thousand citizens, and drag me Hubert de

  Burgh out of that abbey, and bring him here.' The Mayor posted off

  to do it, but the Archbishop of Dublin (who was a friend of

  Hubert's) warning the King that an abbey was a sacred place, and

  that if he committed any violence there, he must answer for it to

  the Church, the King changed his mind and called the Mayor back,

  and declared that Hubert should have four months to prepare his

  defence, and should be safe and free during that time.

  Hubert, who relied upon the King's word, though I think he was old

  enough to have known better, came out of Merton Abbey upon these

  conditions, and journeyed away to see his wife: a Scottish

  Princess who was then at St. Edmund's-Bury.

  Almost as soon as he had departed from the Sanctuary, his enemies

  persuaded the weak King to send out one SIR GODFREY DE CRANCUMB,

  who commanded three hundred vagabonds called the Black Band, with

  orders to seize him. They came up with him at a little town in

  Essex, called Brentwood, when he was in bed. He leaped out of bed,

  got out of the house, fled to the church, ran up to the altar, and

  laid his hand upon the cross. Sir Godfrey and the Black Band,

  caring neither for church, altar, nor cross, dragged him forth to

  the church door, with their drawn swords flashing round his head,

  and sent for a Smith to rivet a set of chains upon him. When the

  Smith (I wish I knew his name!) was brought, all dark and swarthy

  with the smoke of his forge, and panting with the speed he had

  made; and the Black Band, falling aside to show him the Prisoner,

  cried with a loud uproar, 'Make the fetters heavy! make them

  strong!' the Smith dropped upon his knee - but not to the Black