166 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1198-1216.
flicting the deepest humiliation upon the English king ; but lie afterwards lost the advantage he had gained by supporting John against his barons and denouncing the Magna Charta of English popular rights. The contro versy forms one of the most interesting episodes of English history.
John, surnamed Sansterre or Lackland, 1167-1216, suc ceeded his brother Richard I. on the throne, 1199. A man of decided ability and rapid in action but of ignoble spirit, low morals, and despotic temper, he brought upon his r™.l:n such disgrace as England before or since has not suffered. His reign was a succession of wrongs and insults to the English people and the English church.
John had joined Richard in a revolt against their father, sought to displace his brother on the throne during his cap tivity after the Third Crusade, and was generally believed by contemporaries to have put to death his brother Geoffrey's son, Arthur of Brittany, who would have been Richard's successor if the law of primogeniture had been followed. He lost Normandy, Anjou, Maine, and Aquitaine to the Eng lish. Perjury was no barrier to the accomplishment of his plans. He set aside one wife and was faithless to another. No woman was too well born to be safe against his advances. He plundered churches and convents to pay his debts and satisfy his avarice, and yet he never undertook a journey without hanging charms around his neck.1
Innocent came into collision with John over the selection of a successor to Archbishop Hubert of Canterbury, who
1 The contemporary annalists know no words too black to describe John's character. Lingard says, "John stands before us polluted with meanness, cruelty, perjury, murder, and unbridled licentiousness." Green, after quot ing the words "foul as hell is, hell itself is defiled with the foul presence of John," says, "In his inner soul John was the worst outcome of the Angevins. . . . But with the wickedness of his race he inherited its profound abilities." III. chap. I. Hunt, in Diet, of Natl. Biog., XXIX. 406, uses these words, " He was mean, false, vindictive, abominably cruel, and scandalously immoral."
§ 39. INNOCENT AND KING JOHN OF ENGLAND. 167
died 1205. l The monks of Canterbury, exercising an ancient privilege, chose Reginald one of their number. With the king's support, a minority proceeded to another election and chose the king's nominee, John de Grey, bishop of Norwich. John was recognized by the suffragan-bishops and put into possession by the king.
An appeal was made by both parties to Rome, Reginald appearing there in person. After a delay of a year, Innocent set aside both elections and ordered the Canterbury monks, present in Rome, to proceed to the choice of another candi date. The choice fell upon Stephen Langton, cardinal of Chrysogonus. Born on English soil, Stephen was a man of indisputable learning and moral worth. He had studied in Paris and won by his merits prebends in the cathedral churches of Paris and York. The metropolitan dignity could have been intrusted to no shoulders more worthy of wearing it.2 While he has no title to saintship like a Becket, or to theological genius like Anselm, Langton will always occupy a place among the foremost of England's primates as a faithful administrator and the advocate of English popular liberties.
The new archbishop received consecration at the pope's own hand, June 17, 1207, and held his office till his death, 1228. 3 The English king met the notification with fierce resistance, confiscated the property of the Canterbury chap ter, and expelled the monks as guilty of treason. Innocent replied with the threat of the interdict. The king swore by
1 He had before come into collision with John over the harsh treatment of the archbishop of Dublin. Works of Innocent III., Eeg., VI. 63; Migne, 215, 61 ; Potthast, 167.
2 His scholarly tastes are attested by his sermons, poems, and comments on books of the Bible which still exist in manuscript in the libraries of Oxford, Cambridge, Lambeth, and of France. He is falsely credited by some with having been the first to divide the entire Bible into chapters. See Hook, Archbishops of Canterbury, II. 678.
3 Innocent, in his letter to John of May 26, 1207, declared he would turn neither to the right nor to the left in confirming the election. Potthast, 264.