Section V.-Henry the Third, 1216—1257.*

The death of the Earl Marshal in 1219 left the direction of affairs in the hands of a new legate, Pandulf, of Stephen Langton who had just returned forgiven from Rome, and of the Justiciar, Hubert de Burgh. It was an age of transition, and the temper of the Justiciar was eminently transitional. Bred in the school of Henry the Second, he had little sympathy with national freedom; his conception of good government, like that of his master, lay in a wise personal administration, in the preservation of order and law. But he combined with this a thoroughly English desire for national independence, a hatred of foreigners, and a reluctance to waste English blood and treasure in Continental struggles. Able as he proved himself, his task was one of no common difficulty. He was hampered by the constant interference of Rome. A Papal legate resided at the English court, and claimed a share in the administration of the realm as the representative of its overlord, and as guardian of the young sovereign. A foreign party, too, had still a footing in the kingdom, for William Marshal had been unable to rid himself of men like Peter des Roches or Faukes de Breauté, who had fought on the royal side in the struggle against Louis. Hubert had to deal too with the anarchy which that struggle left behind it. From the time of the Conquest the centre of England had been covered with the domains of great nobles, whose longings were for feudal independence, and whose spirit of revolt had been held in check, partly by the stern rule of the Kings, and partly by their creation of a baronage sprung from the Court and settled for the most part in the North. The oppression of John united both the older and these newer houses in the struggle for the Charter.

*Authorities.-The two great authorities for this period are the historiographers of St. Albans, Roger of Wendover, whose work ends in 1235, and his editor and continuator Matthew Paris. The first is full but inaccurate, and with strong royal and ecclesiastical sympathies: of the character of Matthew, I have spoken at the close of the present section. The Chronicles of Dunstable, Waverley, and Burton (published in Mr. Luard's "Annales Monastici ") supply many details. The "Royal Letters," edited by Dr. Shirley, with an admirable preface, are, like the Patent and Close Rolls, of the highest value. For opposition to Rome, see Grosseteste's Letters," edited by Mr. Luard.

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But the character of each remained unchanged, and the close of the struggle saw the feudal party break out in their old lawlessness and defiance of the Crown. For a time the anarchy of Stephen's days seemed revived. But the Justiciar was resolute to crush it, and he was backed by the strenuous efforts of Stephen Langton. The Earl of Chester, the head of the feudal baronage, though he rose in armed rebellion, quailed before the march of Hubert and the Primate's threats of excommunication. A more formidable foe remained in the Frenchman, Faukes de Breauté, the sheriff of six counties, with six royal castles in his hands, and allied both with the rebel barons and Llewelyn of Wales. His castle of Bedford was besieged for two months before its surrender, and the stern justice of Hubert hanged the twenty-four knights and their retainers who formed the garrison before its walls. The blow was effectual; the royal castles were surrendered by the barons, and the land was once more at peace. Freed from foreign soldiery, the country was freed also from the presence of the foreign legate. Langton wrested a promise from Rome that so long as he lived no future legate should be sent to England, and with Pandulf's resignation in 1221 the direct interference of the Papacy in the government of the realm came to an end. But even these services of the Primate were small compared with his services to English freedom. Throughout his life the Charter was the first object of his care. The omission of the articles which restricted the royal power over taxation in the Charter which was published at Henry's accession was doubtless due to the Archbishop's absence and disgrace at Rome. The suppresion of disorder seems to have revived the older spirit of resistance among the royal ministers; when Langton demanded a fresh confirmation of the Charter in Parliament at London, William Brewer, one of the King's councillors, protested that it had been extorted by force, and was without legal validity. "If you loved the King, William," the Primate burst out in anger, you would not throw a stumbling-block in the way of the peace of the realm." The King was cowed by the Archbishop's wrath, and at once promised observance of the Charter. Two years after, its solemn promulgation was demanded by the Archbishop and the barons as the price of a subsidy, and Henry's assent established the principle, so

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fruitful of constitutional results, that redress of wrongs precedes a grant to the Crown.

The death of Stephen Langton in 1228 proved a heavy blow to English freedom. In 1227 Henry had declared himself of age; and though Hubert still remained Justiciar, every year saw him more powerless in his struggle with Rome and with the tendencies of the King. In the mediæval theory of the Papacy, the constitution of Christendom as a spiritual realm took the feudal form of the secular kingdoms within its pale, with the Pope for sovereign, bishops for his barons, the clergy for his under vassals. As the King demanded aids and subsidies in case of need from his liegemen, so it was believed might the head of the Church from the priesthood. At this moment the Papacy, exhausted by its long struggle with Frederick the Second, grew more and more extortionate in its demands. It regarded England as a vassal kingdom, and as bound to aid its overlord. The baronage, however, rejected the demand of aid from the laity, and the Pope fell back on the clergy. He demanded a tithe of all the movables of the priesthood, and a threat of excommunication silenced their murmurs. Exaction followed exaction, the very rights of the lay patrons were set aside, and under the name of "reserves" presentations to English benefices were sold in the Papal market, while Italian clergy were quartered on the best livings of the Church. The general indignation found vent at last in a wide conspiracy; letters from "the whole body of those who prefer to die rather than be ruined by the Romans " were scattered over the kingdom by armed men; tithes gathered for the Pope and foreign clergy were seized and given to the poor, the Papal commissioners beaten, and their bulls trodden under foot. The remonstrances of Rome only revealed the national character of the movement; but as inquiry proceeded the hand of the Justiciar himself was seen to have been at work. Sheriffs had stood idly by while the violence was done; royal letters had been shown by the rioters as approving their acts; and the Pope openly laid the charge of the outbreak on the secret connivance of Hubert de Burgh. The charge came at a time when Henry was in full collision with his minister, to whom he attributed the failure of his attempts to regain the foreign dominions of his house. An invitation from the barons of Normandy had been rejected

through Hubert's remonstrances, and when a great armament gathered at Portsmouth for a campaign in Poitou, it was dispersed for want of transport and supplies. The young King drew his sword and rushed madly on the Justiciar, whom he charged with treason and corruption by the gold of France; but the quarrel was appeased, and the expedition deferred for the year. The failure of the campaign in the following year, when Henry took the field in Britanny and Poitou, was again laid at the door of Hubert, whose opposition was said to have prevented an engagement. The Papal accusation filled up the measure of Henry's wrath. Hubert was dragged from a chapel at Brentwood where he had taken refuge, and a smith was ordered to shackle him. "I will die any death," replied the smith, "before I put iron on the man who freed England from the stranger and saved Dover from France." On the remonstrances of the Bishop of London Hubert was replaced in sanctuary, but hunger compelled him to surrender; he was thrown a prisoner into the Tower, and though soon released he remained powerless in the realm. His fall left England without a check to the rule of Henry himself.

There was a certain refinement in Henry's temper which won him affection even in the worst days of his rule. The Abbey church of Westminster, with which he replaced the ruder minster of the Confessor, remains a monument of his artistic taste. He was a patron and friend of artists and men of letters, and himself skilled in the "gay science" of the troubadour. From the cruelty, the lust, the impiety of his father he was absolutely free. But of the political capacity which had been the characteristic of his house he had little or none. Profuse, changeable, impulsive alike in good and ill, unbridled in temper and tongue, reckless in insult and wit, Henry's delight was in the display of an empty and prodigal magnificence, his one notion of government a dream of arbitrary power. But frivolous as the King's mood was, he clung with a weak man's obstinacy to a distinct line of policy. He cherished the hope of recovering his heritage across the sea. He believed in the absolute power of the Crown; and looked on the pledges of the Great Charter as promises which force had wrested from the King and which force could wrest back again. The claim which the French kings were advancing

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to a divine and absolute power gave a sanction in Henry's mind to the claim of absolute authority which was still maintained by his favorite advisers in the royal council. The death of Langton, the fall of Hubert de Burgh, left him free to surround himself with dependent ministers, mere agents of the royal will. Hosts of hungry Poitevins and Bretons were at once summoned over to occupy the royal castles and fill the judicial and administrative posts about the Court. His marriage with Eleanor of Provence was followed by the arrival in England of the Queen's uncles. The "Savoy," as his house in the Strand was named, still recalls Peter of Savoy, who arrived five years later to take for a while the chief place at Henry's council-board; another brother, Boniface, was on Archbishop Edmund's death consecrated to the highest post in the realm save the Crown itself, the Archbishopric of Canterbury. The young Primate, like his brother, brought with him foreign fashions strange enough to English folk. His armed retainers pillaged the markets. His own archiepiscopal fist felled to the ground the prior of St. Bartholomew-by-Smithfield, who opposed his visitation. London was roused by the outrage; on the King's refusal to do justice a noisy crowd of citizens surrounded the Primate's house at Lambeth with cries of vengeance, and the "handsome archbishop," as his followers styled him, was glad to escape over sea. This brood of Provençals was followed in 1243 by the arrival of the Poitevin relatives of John's queen, Isabella of Angoulême. Aymer was made Bishop of Winchester; William of Valence received the earldom of Pembroke. Even the King's jester was a Poitevin. Hundreds of their dependants followed these great lords to find a fortune in the English realm. The Poitevin lords brought in their train a bevy of ladies in search of husbands, and three English earls who were in royal wardship were wedded by the King to foreigners. The whole machinery of administration passed into the hands of men ignorant and contemptuous of the principles of English government or English law. Their rule was a mere anarchy; the very retainers of the royal household turned robbers, and pillaged foreign merchants in the precincts. of the Court; corruption invaded the judicature; Henry de Bath, a justiciar, was proved to have openly taken bribes and to have adjudged to himself disputed estates.