Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II

CAMEO XXVII. MAGNA CHARTA. (1214-1217.)

_Kings of England_.

1199. John.

1216. Henry III.

_King of Scotland_.

1214. Alexander II.

_King of France_.

1180. Philippe II.

_Emperor of Germany._

1209. Friedrich II.

_Popes_.

1198. Innocent III.

1216. Honorius III.

The first table of English laws were those of Ina, King of Wessex. Alfred the Great published a fuller code, commencing with the Ten Commandments, as the foundation of all law. Ethelstane and St. Dunstan, in the name of Edgar the Peaceable, added many other enactments, by which the lives, liberties, and property of Englishmen were secured as soundly as the wisdom of the times could devise.

These were the laws of Alfred and Edward the Confessor, which William the Conqueror bound himself to observe at his coronation, but which he entirely set at nought, bringing in with him the feudal system, according to his own harsh interpretation. The Norman barons who owned estates in England found themselves more entirely subject to the King, who brought them in by right of conquest, than they had been by ancient custom to their duke in Normandy; and Saxons and Normans alike were new to the strict Forest Laws introduced by William.

Every king of doubtful right tried to win the favor of the Saxons, a sturdy and formidable race, though still in subjection, by engaging to give them the laws of their own dynasty. With this promise William Rufus was crowned, and likewise Henry I., who even distributed copies of the charter to be kept in the archives of all the chief abbeys, but afterward caused them, it seems, to be privately destroyed. Stephen made the same futile promise, failing perhaps, more from inability than from design; and after his death the nation was so glad of repose on any terms, that there were no special stipulations made on the accession of Henry II. He and his Grand Justiciary, Ranulf de Glanville, governed according to law, but it was partly the law of Normandy, partly of their own device; the Norman _parlement_ of barons, and the Saxon Wittenagemot, were alike ignored. The King obtained sufficient supplies from his own immense estates, and from the fines which he had the power to demand at certain times as feudal superior, and did in fact obtain at will, and exact even for doing men justice in courts of law.

As long as there was an orderly sovereign, such as Henry II. the unlimited power of the Crown was tolerable; under a reckless, impetuous prince like Coeur de Lion, it was a grievance; and, in a tyrant such as John Lackland, it became past endurance. His fines were outrageous extortion, and here and there the entries in the accounts show the base, wanton bribery in his court. The Bishop of Winchester paid a tun of good wine for not reminding the King to give a girdle to the Countess of Albemarle; Robert de Vaux gave five of his best palfreys that the King might hold his tongue about Henry Pinel's wife; while a third paid four marks for permission to eat. Moreover, no man's family was safe, even of the highest rank: the death of the Lady of Bramber was fresh in the memory of all; and Matilda the Fair, the daughter of Robert Lord Fitzwalter, was seized, carried from her home, and, because she refused to listen to the suit of the tyrant, her father was banished, his castles destroyed, and the maiden, after enduring with constancy two years' imprisonment in a turret of the White Tower of London, was poisoned with an egg.

The person of whom John stood most in awe, was his Grand Justiciary, Geoffrey Fitzpiers, who, though of low birth, had married the Countess of Essex, and was highly respected for his character and situation.

One day the King, with his usual imprudence, pointed him out to the Provost of St. Omer. "Seest thou him yonder? Never did one man watch another as he watches me, lest I should get some of his goods; but as much pains as he takes to watch me, so much do I take to gain them."

Fitzpiers was not out of earshot, and his comment was, "Sir Provost, well did I hear what the King said to thee; and since he is so set on my wealth, he will surely get it; but thou knowest; and he knows, that I can raise such a storm as he will feel many a day after my death."

John's fears did not prevent him from imposing a fine of 12,000 marks on Geoffrey, which ended his patience. He entered into an understanding with the barons, who had just been summoned by John to attend him on his expedition against France. They joined him, but sailed no further than Jersey, where they declared that the forty days they were bound to serve by feudal tenure were passed; and all, turning back, met Archbishop Langton and the Grand Justiciary at St. Albans, where Fitzpiers commenced his retaliation, by proclaiming, in the King's name, the old Saxon charter of Alfred and Edward, renewed by Henry I., as well as the repeal of the Forest Laws.

Back came John in rage and fury, and let loose his free-companions on the estates of the confederates. At Northampton, Stephen Langton met him, and forbade his violence. "These measures are contrary to your oaths," he said. "Your vassals have a right to be judged only by their peers."

John reviled him. "Rule you the Church," he said; "leave me to govern the State."

Langton left him, but met him again at Nottingham, assuring him the barons would come to have their cause tried, and threatening excommunication to every one who should execute the King's barbarous orders. This brought John to terms, and all parties met in London, where the Archbishop had a previous conference with the barons, to which he brought a copy of the Charter, with great difficulty procured from one of the monasteries. He read it to them, commented on its provisions, and they ended by mutually engaging to conquer, or die in defence of their rights as Englishmen. The Norman barons were glad enough so to term themselves, and to take shelter under English laws.

But it was the Pope's kingdom now, not that of craven John; and Innocent sent a legate, Nicholas, Cardinal Bishop of Tusculum, to settle the affair. John debased himself by repeating the homage and oath of fealty, and by giving a fresh charter of submission, sealed not with wax, but with gold, as if to make it more binding.

The injuries done to the barons by the free-companions were beyond the King's power of restitution, but the Pope adjudged him to pay 15,000 marks for the present, after which John set off on his disastrous journey to Bouvines. In his absence, Fitzpiers died, and this quite consoled him for his defeat. "It's well," he cried; "he is gone to shake hands in hell with our primate Hubert! Now am I first truly a King!"

But Geoffrey's storm was near its bursting, precipitated perhaps by the loss of this last curb on the lawless King. Langton was seriously displeased with the legate, who had taken all the Church patronage into his hands, and was giving it away to Italians, foreigners, children-nay, even promising it for the unborn. The Archbishop sent his brother Simon to appeal to the Pope, but could get no redress. Innocent was displeased with him for opposing the _protege_ of the papal see; and certainly he had no right to complain of the Roman patronage while he held the see of Canterbury.

However, he was too much of an Englishman to see his Church or his country trampled down; and at Christmas, 1214, there was another assembly of the barons at Bury St. Edmund's. The plans were arranged, and an oath taken by each singly, kneeling before the high altar in the church of the royal Saxon saint, that if the laws were rejected, they would withdraw their oaths of allegiance.

They set out for Worcester to present their charter to the King, but he got intelligence of their design, hastened to London, and put himself under the protection of the Knights of the Temple. They followed him, and on Twelfth Day laid the charter before him. He took a high tone, and only insisted on their declaring by hand and seal that they would never so act again; but finding this was not the way to treat such men, promised, on the security of the Archbishop, the Bishop of Ely, and Earl of Pembroke, to grant what they asked at Easter.

He used the space thus gained in taking the Cross, that he might enjoy the immunities of a Crusader, fortifying his castles, and sending for free-companions, while both parties wrote explanations to the Pope. John obtained encouragement, Langton was severely reprehended; Innocent declared all the confederacies of the barons null and void, and forbade them for the future, under pain of excommunication.

In Easter-week the barons met at Stamford, with 2,000 knights and their squires. Their charter was carried to the King at Oxford by the Archbishop and the Earls of Pembroke and Warenne. They were received with fury. "Why do not they ask my crown at once?" cried John. "Do they think I will grant them liberties that would make me a slave?"

Then, with more moderation, he proposed to appeal to the Pope, and to redress all grievances that had arisen in his own time or in that of his brothers; but they still adhered to their demands, and when Pandulfo called on the Primate to excommunicate the insurgent barons, Langton made answer that he was better instructed in the Pope's views, and unless the King dismissed his foreign soldiers, he should be obliged to excommunicate them.

John offered to refer the matter to nine umpires-namely, Innocent, four chosen by himself, and four by the barons; but this also was rejected: the barons would have no terms short of their Great Charter; and electing the most injured of all, Robert Fitzwalter, as their general, they marched against Northampton. It was garrisoned by the King's foreign mercenaries, who refused all attempts to corrupt them; and as the want of machines made it impossible to take it, the barons proceeded to Bedford after fifteen days, their spirits somewhat damped.

However, Bedford opened its gates, and tidings reached them that London was favorably disposed. They therefore proceeded thither, and arrived on the first Sunday in June, early in the morning, when the gates were opened, and the burghers all at mass in the churches. They entered in excellent order, took possession of the Tower, and thence sent forth proclamations, terming themselves the Army of God and of Holy Church, and calling on every one to join them, under pain of being used as traitors and rebels.

The whole country responded; scarcely a man, Saxon or Norman, who was not with them in spirit; and John, then at Odiham, in Hampshire, found himself deserted by all his knights save seven. He was at first in deadly terror; but soon rallying his spirits, he resolved to cajole the barons, pronounced that what his lieges had done was well done, and despatched the Earl of Pembroke to assure them of his readiness and satisfaction in granting their desires: all that was needed was a day and place for the meeting.

"The day, the 15th of June; the place, Runnymede," returned his loving subjects.

The broad, smooth, green meadow of Runnymede, on the bank of the Thames, spreading out fair and fertile beneath the heights of Windsor, became a watchword of English rights.

The stalwart barony of England, Norman in name and rank, but with Saxon blood infused in their veins, and strength consisting of stout Saxon yeomen and peasantry, there arrayed themselves, with Robert Fitzwalter for their spokesman and leader; and thither, on the other hand, came, from Windsor Castle, King John, accompanied by Cardinal Pandulfo, Amaury, Grand Master of the Temple, Langton, and seven other bishops, and Pembroke with twelve nobles, but scarcely one of these, except the two first, whose heart was not with the barons on the other side.

The charter was spread forth-the Great Charter, which, in the first place, asserted the liberty of the Church of England, and then of its people. It forbade the King to exact arbitrary sums from his subjects without the consent of a council of the great crown vassals; it required that no man should be made an officer of justice without knowledge of the law; and forced from the King the promise not to sell, refuse, or defer right or justice to any man; neither to seize the person or goods of any free man without the lawful judgment of his peers, or by the law of the land. The same privileges were extended to the cities, but the serfs or villeins had no part in them; the nobility of England had not yet learnt to consider them worthy of regard. Much, however, was done by the recognition of the law, and Magna Charta has been the foundation of all subsequent legislation in England. A lesser charter was added on the oppressive Forest Laws, which it in some degree mitigated by lessening the number of royal forests, and appointing nobles in each county to keep in check the violence of the King's keepers.

The original Charter itself, creased with age and injured by fire, but with John's great seal still appended to it, remains extant in the British Museum, a copy beside it, bearing in beautiful old writing in Latin the clear, sharp, lawyer-like terms with which the barons, who, rough and turbulent as they were, must have had among them men of great legal ability, sought to bind their tyrant to respect their lives and lands.

Four-and-twenty of their number, and with them the Mayor of London, were appointed to enforce the observance of the Charter, which was sent out to the sheriffs in all the counties to be proclaimed by them with sounds of trumpet at the market-crosses and in the churches; while twelve men, learned in the law, were to be chosen to inquire into and re dress all grievances since the accession. Moreover, every Poitevin, Brabancon, and other free-companion in the King's service was to be immediately dismissed, and the barons were to hold the city of London, and Langton the Tower, for the next two months.

The Charter was thus sealed, June 15th, 1215; and John, as long as he was in the presence of the barons, put a restraint on himself, and acted as if it was granted, as it professed to be, of his own free will and pleasure, speaking courteously to all who approached, and treating the matter in hand with his usual gay levity, signing the Charter with so little heed to its contents that the wiser heads must have gathered that he had no intention of being bound by them. However, they had achieved a great victory, and, after parting with him, amused themselves by arranging for a tournament to be held at Stamford; while John, when within the walls of Windsor, gave vent to his rage, threw himself on the ground, rolled about gnawing sticks and straws, uttering maledictions upon the barons, and denouncing vengeance against the nation that had made him an underling to twenty-five kings.

On recovering, he ordered his horse, and secretly withdrew to the Isle of Wight, where he saw no one but the piratical fishermen of the place, whose manners he imitated, and even, it is said, joined in some of their lawless expeditions. At the same time he despatched letters to the Brabancons and Gascons, inviting them to the conquest of England, and promising them the castles and manors of his present subjects.

The barons gained some tidings of his proceedings, and were on their guard. Robert Fitzwalter wrote letters appointing the tournament to be held, not at Stamford, but on Hounslow Heath, summoning the knights to it with their arms and horses, and promising, as the prize of the tournay, a she-bear, which the young lady of a castle had sent them.

To what brave knight the she-bear was awarded, history says not; for in the midst came the tidings that the Pope had been greatly enraged, had annulled the Charter as prejudicial to the power of the Church, and had commanded the Archbishop of Canterbury to dissolve all leagues among the vassals under pain of excommunication. The barons, having the Archbishop on their side, thought little of the thunders of the Pope; but John was emboldened to come forth, offer a conference at Oxford, which he did not attend, and then go to Dover to receive the free-companions, who flocked from all quarters.

The barons sent Stephen Langton to Rome to plead their cause, and found themselves obliged to take up arms. William de Albini, one of the twenty-five sureties, was sent to possess himself of the Castle of Rochester; but before he could bring in sufficient stores, he was invested by John, with Savary de Mauleon, called the Bloody, and a band of free-companions, whose _noms de guerre_ were equally truculent-namely, the Merciless, the Murderer, the Iron-hearted. One of the archers within the walls bent his bow at the King's breast, and said to the castellane, "Shall I deliver you from yonder mortal foe?" "No; hold thy hand," said Albini; "strike not the evil beast; shouldst thou fail, thy doom would be certain." "Then, betide what God will, I hold my hand!" said the archer.

For two months these brave men held out, but by St. Andrew's Day they had eaten all their horses, and the walls were battered down, so that Albini was forced to surrender. John was for hanging the whole garrison, but Mauleon said, "Sir, the war is not over; the chances are beyond reckoning. If we begin by hanging your barons, your barons may end by hanging us." So Albini and the nobles were spared, but the archers and men-at-arms were hung in halters to every tree in the forest.

Meanwhile, the Archbishop had failed at Rome, and partly by his own fault, for he had tried to make his brother Simon, a man generally detested, Archbishop of York, and thus had given Innocent good reason for again interfering. He was placed under sentence of suspension; the barons, beginning with Fitzwalter, were excommunicated as rebels against a Church vassal and Crusader, and termed as wicked as Saracens; and the city of London was laid under an interdict.

The Londoners boldly declared that the Pope had no power to meddle in their case, kept their churches open, and celebrated their Christmas as usual; but beyond their walls it was less easy to be secure.

John now had two great armies of foreigners, and had been joined by several of the barons' party; and he marched with one of them for the North, where young King Alexander of Scotland had laid siege to Norham, and had received the homage of the neighboring nobility.

As John advanced, the barons burnt their houses and corn before him, while he and his marauders ruined all they approached; he every morning, with his own hands, set fire to his night's lodgings, and in eight days five principal towns were consumed, and the course of his army was like the bed of a torrent.

Vowing he would unkennel the young fox, as he called Alexander, on account of his red hair, John sent his troops into Scotland, where they laid the whole country waste up to Edinburgh, and then, returning, reduced the castles and ravaged the lands of the barons in Yorkshire, and the same dreadful atrocities were perpetrated by his other army in the south of England, till the country people called the free-companions by no other name than Satan's Guards, and the Devil's Servants.

The barons had no stronghold left them but London, and saw their rank, their families, and estates, at the mercy of the remorseless tyrant and his savage banditti, backed by the support of their spiritual superiors. In this condition they deemed all ties between them and their sovereign dissolved, and, as their last resource, resolved to offer the crown to Louis, the son of Philippe Auguste, and the husband of Blanche of Castile, the marriage made to separate France from the cause of Arthur. It was a step which even their extremity could not justify, passing over, as it did, the rights of the captive Pearl of Brittany, of John's own innocent children, and of those of his eldest sister. But men have seldom been harder pressed than were these barons; and they were further tempted by the hope that all the mercenaries who were French subjects might be detached from the enemy by seeing their own prince's standard unfurled against him.

Saher de Quincy, Earl of Winchester, and Robert Fitzwalter, were deputed to carry letters to Prince Louis, who was then at war with the Albigenses of Languedoc. The wary old King Philippe dissembled his joy at the promised triumph over the hated Plantagenet, and at first declared that he could not trust his son's person in England, unless twenty-four nobles were first given up to him as hostages; but he permitted Louis to send a favorable reply to England, and the barons were so delighted at its reception, accompanied by a few French volunteers, that they held another tournament in its honor, but this was closed by the death of Geoffrey Mandeville, who was accidentally killed by the lance of a Frenchman.

Innocent was much incensed at the enterprise of the French prince, forgetting that he had already shown him the way to England. He sent his legate, Gualo, with letters to forbid Philippe's interference with a fief of the Holy See, and these were laid before the court in full council. Philippe, who always tried to have the law apparently on his side, began by saying he was the devoted subject of the Pope, and it was by no counsel or advice of his that his son disobeyed the court of Rome; but as he declared that he had some rights to the English crown, it was fair to hear him.

A knight then arose, and declared that John had been attainted and condemned by Philippe's own court on account of Arthur's murder; that he had since given his crown away without the consent of his barons; and as no sovereign had any such right, the throne was vacant by his own act, and his barons had full power to elect, and Louis to accept.

The legate declared John to be a Crusader, and therefore under the Church's peace for four years. He was answered, that John had himself violated that peace; and then Louis, rising, and turning to his father, said, "Sir, if I am your liegeman for the lands you have given me here, you have no right to England, which is offered to me: you can decree nothing on that head. I appeal to the judgment of my peers, whether I ought to follow your commands or my rights. I beg you not to hinder my designs, for my cause is just, and I will fight to the death for my wife's inheritance." Then, red with anger, Louis the Lion left the assembly, while the legate asked the King for a safe-conduct to England; and Philippe replied, that on the French territory he was safe enough; but if, on the coast, he fell into the hands of _King_ Louis's men, he could not be responsible for his safety.

Gualo, however, came safely to England, and joined John at Dover, where he promised him the succor of the Church; and Innocent, as an earnest, excommunicated Louis, and preached to his cardinals on Ezekiel xxi. 28: "The sword, the sword is drawn." But this was one of the last public acts of his life; he died at Perugia on the 8th of July, 1216, without having been able to send any support to his obedient vassal.

Meanwhile, Louis collected a great force, and embarked with it in 680 vessels, under the command of Eustace the Monk, a recreant who had become a pirate, and was reckoned the best mariner of his time. John fled from Dover, leaving it to the trusty and loyal Hubert de Burgh, while Louis disembarked at Sandwich, and was received by the barons, who were charmed with his chivalrous and affable demeanor. They conducted him to London, where, in St. Paul's, he received their homage, and made oath to govern them by good laws, after which he appointed Simon Langton his chancellor. Nearly the whole country gave in their adhesion, Alexander of Scotland paid him homage, the North rose in his favor, and the chief strongholds that remained to John were Windsor Castle; Corfe, where, under the care of his wicked follower, Pierre de Maulae, were his queen and little children; and Dover, gallantly defended by Hubert de Burgh.

Nearly four months were spent by Louis in a vain attempt to take this place; his supplies were cut off by the sailors of the Cinque Ports, who were in John's interest; and though Louis's father sent him a battering machine, called Malvoisine, or "Bad Neighbor," he could make no impression on the walls. Meantime, the estates of the barons were devastated by John and his free-companions; and if ever the French prince retook any of the castles, he retained them in his own hands, or gave them to his French followers, instead of restoring them to their owners. They began to suspect that they were in evil case, more especially when the Vicomte de Melun, being suddenly seized by a mortal sickness, sent for all the nobles then in London, and thus spoke: "I grieve for your fate. I, with the prince and fifteen others, have sworn an oath, that, when the realm is his, ye shall all be beggared, or exterminated as traitors whom he can never trust. Look to yourselves!"

Suspicion thus excited, William Longsword and several other barons returned to their allegiance, and forty more offered to do the same on the promise of pardon. Louis was forced to raise the siege of Dover, and John's prospects improved; he took Lincoln, and marched to Lynn, whence he wont to Wisbech, intending to proceed by the Wash from Cross-keys to Foss-dyke, across the sands-a safe passage at low water, but covered suddenly by the tide, which there forms a considerable eddy on meeting the current of the Welland.

His troops were nearly all on the other side, when the tide began to rush in. They gained the higher ground in safety; but the long train of wagons, carrying his crown, his treasure, his stores of provision, were suddenly engulfed, and the whole was lost. Some years since, one of the gold circlets worn over the helmet was found by a laborer in the sand, but, in ignorance of its value, he sold it to a Jew, and it has thus been lost to the antiquary.

King John went into one of his paroxysms of despair at the ruin he beheld, and, feverish with passion, arrived at the Cistercian convent of Swineshead, where he seems to have tried to forget his disaster in a carouse upon peaches and new ale, and in the morning found himself extremely ill; but fancying the monks had poisoned him, he insisted on being carried in a litter to Sleaford, whence the next day he proceeded to Newark, where it became evident that death was at hand. A confessor was sent for, and he bequeathed his kingdom to his son Henry. As far as it appears from the records of his deathbed, no compunction visited him; probably, he thought himself secure as a favored vassal of the Holy See. When asked where he would be buried, he replied that he committed himself to God and to the body of St. Wulstan (who had been canonized by Innocent III. in 1203). He dictated a letter to the new Pope, Honorius III., and died October 19, 1216, in the forty-ninth year of his age, the last and worst of the four rebellious sons of Henry II., all cut off in the prime of life.

His death made a great difference in the aspect of affairs. His innocent sons had forfeited no claim to the affection of the English, and their weakness was their most powerful claim.

The Earl of Pembroke at once marched to Corfe Castle, and brought the two boys, nine and seven years old, to Gloucester, where young Henry's melancholy coronation took place. In lieu of his father's lost and dishonored crown, a golden bracelet of his mother's was placed upon his head by the papal legate, instead of his own primate, and he bent his knee in homage to the see of Rome. The few vassals who attended him held their coronation banquet, and afterward bound a white fillet around their heads, in token of their vow of fidelity to their little, helpless king. Magna Charta was revised a few days after at Bristol; Henry was made to swear to agree to it, and the Earl of Pembroke appointed as his protector.

Meantime, Louis had received the news of his rival's death while again besieging Dover, the capture of which was most important to him, as securing his communications with his own country. He sent tidings of it to the garrison by two English barons, one of them Hubert's own brother, Thomas de Burgh. On their approach the sentinels sounded their horns, and, without opening the gates, the governor came to speak to them, with five archers, their crossbows bent. They told him of the King's decease, and reminded him of the oath Louis had made to hang him and all his garrison if the town were taken by assault instead of surrender. His brother said he was ruining himself and all his family, and the other knight offered him, in the prince's name, the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk. But Hubert would hear no more. "Traitors that you are," he cried, "if King John is dead, he leaves children! Say no more; if you open your lips again, I will have you shot with a hundred arrows, not sparing even my brother."

Louis was obliged to draw off his forces, returned to London, and took Hertford; Robert Fitzwalter claimed the keeping of the castle as a family right, but Louis forgot the necessity of conciliating the barons, and replied that he could not trust a man who had betrayed his King. This, of course, led to further desertions on the part of the English, and the truce which prevailed through Lent added greater numbers to the young King's party than Blanche of Castile was able to collect in France for her lord.

After Easter the Earl of Pembroke besieged Mountsorrel, in Leicestershire. The Count de Perche came to its relief, and, after forcing him to retreat, attacked Lincoln Castle, which was bravely held by the late castellane's widow, Nicolette de Camville. She contrived to send the Earl tidings of her distress, and he set out from Newark with four hundred knights and their squires, two hundred and fifty crossbowmen and other infantry, all wearing white crosses sewn on their breasts, and sent forth by the legate as to a holy war. The crossbowmen, under one of John's free-companions, were a mile in advance, and entered the castle by a postern, while the French, taking the baggage for a second army, retreated into the town; but there the garrison made a sally, and a battle was fought in the streets, which ended in the total discomfiture of the French. The Count de Perche was offered his life, but swearing that he would yield to no English traitor, he was instantly slain, and the Fair of Lincoln, as it was called, completely broke the strength of Louis.

He wrote word to his wife and father of his perilous situation, shut up within the walls of London, and the whole country in possession of Henry, and entreated them to send him reinforcements. Fear of the Pope prevented Philippe from putting himself forward, but he connived at Blanche's exertions, and she succeeded in collecting three hundred knights, who were to embark in eighty large ships, under the command of Eustace the Monk.

Hubert de Burgh, landsman as he was, resolved to oppose them to the utmost, and with much difficulty collected a fleet of forty ships of all sizes. Several of the knights, believing his attempt hopeless, declared that they knew nothing of sea fights, and refused to share his peril; and he himself was so persuaded that he was sacrificing himself, that he received the last rites of the Church as a dying man, and left orders that, in case of his being made prisoner, Dover should on no account be surrendered, even as the price of his life.

Midway in the strait he met the French fleet; his archers showered their arrows and quarrels, and, being on the windward, threw clouds of quicklime, which blinded the eyes of the enemy; then, bearing down on them, grappled the ships with iron hooks, and boarded them so gallantly, that the French, little accustomed to this mode of warfare, soon gave over resistance: many of the ships were sunk, and the rest completely dispersed; the pirate monk Eustace was taken, and, being considered as a traitor and apostate, was put to death, and his head carried on a pole to Dover in triumph.

This defeat completely broke the hopes of Louis, and he sent to demand a safe-conduct for messengers to Henry, or rather to the Earl of Pembroke, offered to leave England, and concluded a peace, restoring the allegiance of the barons, and even engaging to give up Normandy and Anjou on his accession to the crown of France. He then returned to his own country, where his father received him affectionately, blaming him, however, for the want of skill and judgment with which he had conducted his affairs. His departure took place in the end of 1217, and thus closed the wars which established the Great Charter as the foundation of English law.