reckless of crime, and a weakness, or even cowardice, which shrank at the very semblance of opposition. His virtues, if ever he possessed any, have been swallowed up in the fiercer picture which Historians have delighted to paint of his vices; and he who should now attempt to bring forth the former or extenuate the latter, would meet with far less credit than censure; though the apparently wavering character of the King's mind has sometimes been attributed to insanity. Perhaps, of all his biographers, Holingshed, when summing up his life from the Monastic Chronicles, has given the most favourable view of it; and it is therefore attached to the present Memoir, on account of its singularity and candour towards a Sovereign whom all others have delighted in condemning.

"He was comelie of stature, but of looke and countenance displeasant and angrie, somewhat cruel of nature, as by the writers of his time he is noted, and not so hardie as doubtful in time of perill and danger. But this seemeth to be an enuious report, uttered by those that were given to speake no good of him whom they inwardlie hated. Howbeit, some give this witnesse of him, as the author of the booke of Bernewelle Abbey and other, that he was a great and mightie prince, but yet not very fortunate, much like Marius, the noble Roman, tasting of fortune both waies: bountifull and liberall unto strangers, but of his owne

or assistance till he died. In his persecution of the Jews, this King was probably not worse than the times wherein he lived; but on one occasion he demanded from a rich Jew of Bristol a present of 10,000 marks, ordering one of his teeth to be drawn every morning until it was paid. For some time he resisted, and seven of his double teeth were extracted; but on the eighth day he solicited a respite, and gave security for the payment. It can scarcely be imagined that John possessed much devotion; but, perhaps, it will not at the present time be considered as a proof of his abandoned immorality, that he exclaimed when he saw a fat stag cut up after hunting, "How happily hath this fellow lived, and yet he never heard mass !"

people (for their dailie treasons practised towards him) a great oppressor, so that he trusted more to forreners than to them, therefore in the end he was of them utterlie forsaken.

"Verilie, whosoever shall consider the course of the historie written of this prince, he shall find, that he hath beene little beholden to the writers of that time in which he liued: for scarselie can they afoord him a good word, except when trueth in forceth them to come out with it as it were against their willes. The occasion whereof (as some thinke) was, for that he was no freend to the clergie. And yet vndoubtedlie his deeds show he had a zeale to religion, as it was then accompted: for he founded the abbeie of Beaulieu in the New-forrest, as it were in recompense of certaine parish churches, which to inlarge the same forrest, he caused to be throwne downe and ruinated.

"He builded the Monasterie of Farendon, and the Abbei of Hales in Shropshire; he repaired Godstow, where his father's concubine Rosamond laie interred; he was no small benefactor to the Minster of Litchfield in Staffordshire; to the Abbeie of Crokesden in the same shire; and to the Chapell of Knaresburgh in Yorkshire. So that, (to say what I thinke,) he was not so void of deuotion towards the Church, as diuers of his enimies have reported, who of meere malice conceale all his vertues, and hide none of his vices; but are plentifull enough in setting foorth the same to the vttermost, and interpret all his doings and saieings to the woorst, as may appeare to those that advisedlie read the works of them that write the order of his life, which may seeme rather an inuective than a true historie: neuerthelesse, sith we cannot come by the truth of things through the malice of the writers, we must content our selues with this vnfriendlie description of his time. Certeinlie it should seeme the man

had a princelie heart in him, and wanted no thing but faithful subiects to haue assisted him in reuenging such wrongs as were doone and offered by the French King and others.

"Moreover, the pride and pretended authoritie of the cleargie he could not well abide, when they went about to wrest out of his hands the prerogative of his princelie rule and gouernment. True it is, that to mainteine his warres, which he was forced to take in hand, as well in France as elsewhere, he was constreined to make all the shift he could deuise to recouer monie; and because he pinched their pursses, they conceived no small hatred against him: which when he perceived, and wanted peradventure discretion to passe it ouer, he discouered now and then in his rage his immoderate displeasure; as one not able to bridle his affections, a thing verie hard in a stout stomach, and thereby missed now and then to compasse that, which otherwise he might verie well have brought to passe."

MEMOIR

OF

Stephen Langton,

ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY.

ONSIDERING this Prelate as one of the most active members of that confederacy, which procured from King John the Great Charter of Liberties, and even as the very individual by whom the ancient precedent was discovered, on which that Charter might be founded, the ensuing account of his life seems properly to belong to the subject of the present volume; as embracing biographical notices of the principal persons, engaged in effecting the establishment of that great national covenant.

STEPHEN LANGTON was a native of England, although none of his biographers assign with any degree of certainty, either in what part, or at what period he was born. He received his principal instruction in the University of Paris, where he was held in great esteem by the King and nobility of France, for his literary acquirements, by whom he was principally employed as a teacher of divinity. This also procured his advancement to be Canon of Paris, Chancellor of the University in the same City, and Dean of Rheims; and the fame of his learning reaching to Rome, he was summoned thither by Innocent III., who conferred upon him the dignity of Cardinal.

The predecessor of Langton in the See of Canterbury, was Hubert Walter, who died in July 1205; and King John, who had long acted under his direction, felt more inclined to rejoice at his death, and the liberty which he seemed to have gained by it, than to lament the loss of that excellent counsellor. "Methinks," said he, "I am now indeed King of England;" but, adds an ecclesiastical Historian of the sixteenth century, "had he known either how ill he might have missed him, or great trouble his death would have caused him, he would rather have said, Now I begin to lose my kingdome." Upon the death of Hubert, John immediately seized upon his possessions for his own use; although they were otherwise bequeathed by the Prelate's will. The Monks of Canterbury, being now very desirous of exercising their privilege of electing another Archbishop, to prevent any direction of the King's from interfering with it, met at midnight, nominated Reginald, their Sub-Prior to the, office; and, sending him to Rome to have his election confirmed, made him swear to conceal his dignity till he arrived in the presence of Innocent III. The vanity, however, of the Archbishopelect overcame his honour, for he had scarcely passed the seas, when he proclaimed his ecclesiastical dignity, and displayed his testimonial of election; which so excited the resentment of his brethren, that they rendered void their former election, and petitioned the King for liberty to make a second. As the first proceeding had been wholly without John's consent, he gave his permission, and nominated John Grey, Bishop of Norwich; a Prelate singularly well qualified for the office, and then in the King's employment, as successor to the vacant Archbishopric. After his election had been solemnised in the most splendid and public manner, both that and the former were