172 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1198-1210.
and was compelled by the organized strength of the barons to meet them at Runnymede, an island in the Thames near Windsor, where he signed and swore to keep the Magna Charta, June 15, 1215.
This document, with the Declaration of Independence, the most important contract in the civil history of the Eng lish-speaking peoples, meant defined law as against uncertain tradition and the arbitrary will of the monarch. It was the first act of the people, nobles, and Church in combination, a compact of Englishmen with the king. By it the sovereign agreed that justice should be denied or delayed to no one, and that trial should be by the peers of the accused. No taxes were to be levied without the vote of the common council of the realm, whose meetings were fixed by rule. The single clause bearing directly upon the Church confirmed the free dom of ecclesiastical elections.
After his first paroxysms of rage, when he gnawed sticks and straw like a madman,1 John called to his aid Innocent, on the ground that he had attached his seal under compulsion. In fact, he had yielded to the barons with no intention of keeping his oath. The pope made the fatal mistake of taking sides with perjured royalty against the reasonable demands of the nation. In two bulls2 he solemnly released John from his oath, declaring that "the enemy of the human race had, by his crafty arts, excited the barons against him." He asserted that the " wicked audacity of the barons tended to the contempt of the Apostolic see, the detriment of kingly prerogative, the disgrace of the English nation, and the en dangering of the cross." He praised John for his Christian submission to the will of the supreme head of Christendom, and the pledge of annual tribute, and for his vow to lead a crusade. As for the document itself, he " utterly repro bated and condemned it" as "a low and base instrument, yea, truly wicked and deserving to be reprobated by all, especially
>M. Paris, Luard's ed. II. Gil. 2 Aug. 24, 1215, Potthast, 435.
§ 40. INNOCENT AND MAGNA CHARTA. 173
because the king's assent was secured by force."1 Upon pain of excommunication he forbade its observance by the king, and pronounced it "null and void for all time." 2
The sentence of excommunication which Innocent fulmi nated against the refractory barons, Langton refused to pub lish. For his disobedience the pope suspended him from his office, Nov. 4, 1215, and he was not allowed to resume it till 1219, when Innocent had been in his grave three years. London, which supported the popular cause, was placed under the interdict, and the prelates of England who took the popular side Innocent denounced " as worse than Sara cens, worse than those open enemies of the cross."3
The barons, in self-defence, called upon the Dauphin of France to accept the crown. He landed in England, but was met by the papal ban.* During the struggle Innocent died, but his policy was continued by his successor. Three months later, Oct. 19, 1216, John died at Newark,
1 Compositionen hujusmodi reprobamus penitus et damnamus . . . compositio non solum sit vilis et turpis, verum etiam illicita et iniqua ut merito sit ab omnibus reprobanda. M. Paris, Luard's ed., II. 619 sq. Another ground given by Innocent for annulling the document was that he as Eng land's overlord had not been consulted before the king's signature was attached.
2 The language is the strongest : tarn cartam quam obligations . . . irritantes penitus et cassantes, ut nullo unquam tempore aliquam habeant firmitatem. M. Paris, Luard's ed. II. 619. See Hurter, 11.656 sq. Some excuse has been found by advocates of papal infallibility for this fierce sentence upon the ground that Innocent was condemning the mode by which the king's con sent was obtained. Innocent adduces three considerations, the conspiracy of the barons to force the king, their disregard of his Crusading vow, and the neg lect of all parties to consult the pope as overlord. He condemns, it is true, the document as a document, and it has been said the contents were not aimed at. Innocent's mistake and official offence were that, passing by entirely, the merits of the Charter, he should have espoused the despotism of the iniquitous king.
8 Potthast, 437 ; M. Paris, in Luard, II. 627. About the same time at John's request, Innocent annulled the election of Simon Langton, Stephen's brother, to the see of York.
4 Thomas Fuller remarks that "the commonness of these curses caused them to be contemned, so that they were a fright to few, a mock to many, and a hurt to none."