Louis the Fat, 1108–1137.
Philip Augustus, 1180–1223.
The first of the kings of France to undertake with success the serious task of conquering his own duchy was Louis the Fat (1108–1137). He was an active soldier and strove to keep free the means of communication between the different centers of his somewhat scattered feudal domains and to destroy the power of the usurping castellans in his fortresses. But he made only a beginning; it was reserved for his famous grandson, Philip Augustus (1180–1223), to make the duchy of France into a real kingdom.
The Plantagenets in France.
Henry II.
49.Philip had a far more difficult problem to face than any of the preceding kings of his house. Before his accession a series of those royal marriages which until recently exercisedso great an influence upon political history, had brought most of the great fiefs of central, western, and southern France into the hands of the king of England, Henry II, who now ruled over the most extensive realm in western Europe. Henry II was the son of William the Conqueror's granddaughter Matilda,[78]who had married one of the great vassals of the French kings, the count of Anjou and Maine.[79]Henry, therefore, inherited through his mother all the possessions of the Norman kings of England,—namely, England, the duchy of Normandy, and the suzerainty over Brittany,—and through his father the counties of Maine and Anjou. Lastly, through his own marriage with Eleanor, the heiress of the dukes of Guienne (as Aquitaine was now called), he possessed himself of pretty much all of southern France, including Poitou and Gascony. Henry II, in spite of his great importance in English history, was as much French as English, both by birth and sympathies, and gave more than half his time and attention to his French possessions.
Philip and the Plantagenets.
It thus came about that the king of France suddenly found a new and hostile state, under an able and energetic ruler, erected upon his western borders. It included more than half the territory in which he was recognized as king. The chief business of Philip's life was an incessant war upon the Plantagenets, in which he was constantly aided by the strife among his enemies themselves. Henry II divided his French possessions among his three sons, Geoffrey, Richard, and John, delegating to them such government as existed. Philip took advantage of the constant quarrels of the brothers among themselves and with their father. He espoused, in turn, the cause of Richard the Lion-Hearted against his father, of John Lackland, the youngest brother, against Richard, and so on. Without these family discords the powerful monarchy of thePlantagenets might have annihilated the royal house of France, whose narrow dominions it closed in and threatened on all sides.
Richard the Lion-Hearted.
So long as Henry II lived there was little chance of expelling the Plantagenets or of greatly curtailing their power, but with the accession of his reckless son, Richard I, called the Lion-Hearted,[80]the prospects of the French king brightened wonderfully. Richard left his kingdom to take care of itself, while he went upon a crusade to the Holy Land. He persuaded Philip to join him, but Richard was too overbearing and masterful, and Philip too ambitious, to make it possible for them to agree for long. The king of France, who was physically delicate, was taken ill and was glad of the excuse to return home and brew trouble for his powerful vassal. When Richard himself returned, after several years of romantic but fruitless adventure, he found himself involved in a war with Philip, in the midst of which he died.
John loses the French possessions of his house.
Richard's younger brother, John, who enjoys the reputation of being the most despicable of English kings, speedily gave Philip a good excuse for seizing a great part of the Plantagenet lands. John was suspected of conniving at the brutal murder of his nephew Arthur (the son of Geoffrey), to whom the nobles of Maine, Anjou, and Touraine had done homage. He was also guilty of the less serious offense of carrying off and marrying a lady betrothed to one of his own vassals. Philip, as John's suzerain, summoned him to appear at the French court to answer the latter charge. Upon John's refusal to appear or to do homage for his continental possessions, Philip caused his court to issue a decree confiscating almost all of the Plantagenet lands, leaving to the English king only the southwest corner of France.
Philip found little difficulty in possessing himself, not only of the valley of the Loire, but of Normandy itself, whichshowed no disinclination to accept him in place of the Plantagenets, whom the Normans associated with continual exactions. Six years after Richard's death the English kings had lost all their continental fiefs except Guienne. The Capetian domain was, for the first time, the chief among the great feudal states of France, both in wealth and extent. It should be observed that Philip, unlike his ancestors, was no longer merelysuzerainof the new conquests, but was himself duke of Normandy, and count of Anjou, of Maine, etc. The boundaries of his domain, that is, the lands which he himself controlled directly as feudal lord, now extended to the sea.
Philip strengthens the royal power as well as increases the royal domain.
50.Philip not only greatly increased the extent of the royal domain, but strengthened his control over all classes of his subjects as well. He appears, also, to have fully realized the importance of the towns which had begun to develop a century earlier. There were several important ones in the districts he annexed, and these he took especial pains to treat with consideration. He extended his protection, and at the same time his authority, over them and in this way lessened the influence and resources of the feudal lords within whose territories the towns lay.
Appanages.
The chief innovation of Philip's son, Louis VIII, was the creation ofappanages. These were fiefs assigned to his younger sons, one of whom was made count of Artois; another, count of Anjou and Maine; a third, count of Auvergne. This has generally been regarded by historians as a most unfortunate reënforcement of the feudal idea. It not only retarded the consolidation of the kingdom but opened the way to new strife between the members of the royal family itself.
Louis IX, 1226–1270.
Settlement of question of the English king's possessions in France, 1258.
The long reign of Philip's grandson, Louis IX, or St. Louis (1226–1270), is extremely interesting from many standpoints. St. Louis himself is perhaps the most heroic and popular figure in the whole procession of French monarchs, and his virtues and exploits have been far more amply recorded than those of any of his predecessors. But it is only his part in the consolidation of the French monarchy that immediately concerns us. After a revolt of the barons of central France in alliance with the king of England, which Louis easily put down, he proceeded, in a most fair-minded and Christian spirit, to arrange a definite settlement with the Plantagenets. The king of England was to do him homage for the duchy of Guienne, Gascony, and Poitou and surrender every claim upon the rest of the former possessions of the Plantagenets on the continent.
Map of France at the Close of the Reign of Philip AugustusMap of France at the Close of the Reign of Philip Augustus
Thebaillisserve to increase the king's power.
Besides these important territorial adjustments, Louis IX did much to better the system of government and strengthen the king's power. Philip Augustus had established a new kind of officer, thebaillis, who resembled themissiof Charlemagne. They were supported by a salary and frequently shifted from place to place so that there should be no danger of their taking root and establishing powerful feudal families, as had happened in the case of the counts, who were originally royal officers. Louis adopted and extended the institution of thebaillis. In this way he kept his domains under his control and saw that justice was done and his revenue properly collected.
Government of Louis IX.
Before the thirteenth century there was little government in France in the modern sense of the word. The king relied for advice and aid, in the performance of his simple duties as ruler, upon a council of the great vassals, prelates, and others about his person. This council was scarcely organized into a regular assembly, and it transacted all the various kinds of governmental business without clearly distinguishing one kind from another. In the reign of Louis IX this assembly began to be divided into three bodies with different functions. There was: first, the king's council to aid him in conducting the general affairs of the kingdom; secondly, a chamber of accounts, a financial body which attended to the revenue; andlastly, theparlement, a supreme court made up of those trained in the law, which was becoming ever more complicated as time went on. Instead, as hitherto, of wandering about with the king, the parlement took up its quarters upon the little island in the Seine at Paris, where the great court-house (Palais de Justice) still stands. A regular system of appeals from the feudal courts to the royal courts was established. This served greatly to increase the king's power in distant parts of his realms. It was decreed further that the royal coins should alone be used in the domains of the king, and that his money should be accepted everywhere else within the kingdom concurrently with that of those of his vassals who had the privilege of coinage.
Philip the Fair (1285–1314) the first absolute ruler of France.
The grandson of St. Louis, Philip the Fair, is the first example of a French king who had both the will and the means to play the rôle of an absolute monarch. He had inherited a remarkably well organized government compared with anything that had existed since the time of Charlemagne. He was surrounded by a body of lawyers who had derived their ideas of the powers and rights of a prince from the Roman law. They naturally looked with suspicion upon everything that interfered with the supreme power of the monarch, and encouraged the king to bring the whole government into his own hands regardless of the privileges of his vassals and of the clergy.
The commons, or third estate, summoned to the Estates General, 1302.
Philip's attempt to force the clergy to contribute from their wealth to the support of the government led to a remarkable struggle with the pope, of which an account will be given in a later chapter. With the hope of gaining the support of the whole nation in his conflict with the head of the Church, the king summoned a great council of his realm in 1302. He included for the first time the representatives of the towns in addition to the nobles and prelates, whom the king had long been accustomed to consult. At the same period that theFrench Estates General,[81]or national assembly, was taking form through the addition of representatives of the commons, England was creating its Parliament. The two bodies were, however, to have a very different history, as will become clear later.
By the sagacious measures that have been mentioned, the French monarchs rescued their realms from feudal disruption and laid the foundation for the most powerful monarchy of western Europe. However, the question of how far the neighboring king across the Channel should extend his power on the continent remained unanswered. The boundary between France and England was not yet definitely determined and became, during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the cause of long and disastrous wars, from which France finally emerged victorious. We must now turn back to trace the development of her English rival.[82]
Importance of England in the history of western Europe.
51.The country of western Europe whose history is of greatest interest to English-speaking peoples is, of course, England. From England the United States and the vast English colonies have inherited their language and habits of thought, much of their literature, and many peculiarities of their laws and institutions. In this volume it will not, however, be possible to study England except in so far as it has played a part in the general development of Europe. This it has greatly influenced by its commerce, industry, and colonies, as well as by the example it has set of permitting the people to participate with the king in the government.
Overlordship of Wessex.
Invasions of the Danes. Their defeat by Alfred the Great, 871–901.
The conquest of the island of Britain by the German Angles and Saxons has already been spoken of, as well as the conversion of these pagans to Christianity by the representatives of the Roman Church. The several kingdoms founded by the invaders were brought under the overlordship of the southern kingdom of Wessex[83]by Egbert, a contemporary of Charlemagne. But no sooner had the long-continued invasions of the Germans come to an end and the country been partially unified, than the Northmen (or Danes, as the English called them), who were ravaging France, began to make incursions into England. Before long they had made permanent settlements and conquered a large district north of the Thames. They were defeated, however, in a great battle by Alfred theGreat, the first English king of whom we have any satisfactory knowledge. He forced the Danes to accept Christianity and established, as the boundary between them and his own kingdom of Wessex, a line running from London across the island to Chester.
Alfred fosters the development of the English language.
Alfred was as much interested in education as Charlemagne had been. He called in learned monks from the continent and from Wales as teachers of the young men. He desired that all those born free, who had the means, should be forced to learn English thoroughly, and that those who proposed to enter the priesthood should learn Latin as well. He himself translated Boethius'Consolation of Philosophyand other works from the Latin into English, and doubtless encouraged the composition of the famousAnglo-Saxon Chronicle, the first history written in a modern language.[84]
England from the death of Alfred the Great to the Norman Conquest, 901–1066.
The formation of the kingdoms of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway at the end of the ninth century caused many discontented Scandinavian chieftains to go in search of adventure, so that the Danish invasions continued for more than a century after Alfred's death (901), and we hear much of the Danegeld, a tax levied to buy off the invaders when necessary. Finally a Danish king (Cnut) succeeded in making himself king of England in 1017. The Danish dynasty maintained itself only for a few years. Then a last weak Saxon king, Edward the Confessor, held nominal sway for a score of years. Upon his death in 1066, William, Duke of Normandy, claimed the crown and became king of England. The Norman Conquest closes what is called the Saxon period of English history, during which the English nation may be said to have taken form. Before considering the achievements of William the Conqueror we must glance at the condition of England as he found it.
Great Britain at the accession of William the Conqueror.
The map of Great Britain at the accession of William the Conqueror has the same three great divisions which exist to-day. The little kingdoms had disappeared and England extended north to the Tweed, which separated it, as it now does, from the kingdom of Scotland. On the west was Wales, inhabited then, as it is still, by descendants of the native Britons, of whom only a small remnant had survived the German invasions. The Danes had been absorbed into the mass of the population and all England recognized a single king. The king's power had increased as time went on, although he was bound to act in important matters only with the consent of a council (Witenagemot) made up of high royal officials, bishops, and nobles. The kingdom was divided into shires,[85]as it still is, and each of these had a local assembly, a sort of parliament for the dispatch of local matters.
After the victory of the papal party at the Council of Whitby,[86]the Church had been thoroughly organized and the intercourse of the clergy with the continent served, as we have seen, to keep England from becoming completely isolated. Although the island was much behind some other portions of Europe in civilization, the English had succeeded in laying the foundations for the development of a great nation and an admirable form of government.
Feudalism in England.
England was not, however, to escape feudalism. The Normans naturally brought with them their own feudal institutions, but even before their coming many suggestions of feudalism might have been discovered. Groups of shires had been placed under the government of earls who became dangerous rivals of the kings; and the habit of giving churchmen the right to govern, to a large extent, those who lived upon their vast estates recalls the conditions in the Frankish empire duringthe same period. The great landed proprietor in England exercised much the same powers over those about him that the feudal lords enjoyed upon the other side of the Channel.
The struggle for the English crown between Earl Harold and Duke William of Normandy.
52.As has been said, William of Normandy claimed that he was entitled to the English crown; he even assumed that all who refused to acknowledge him in England were traitors. We are, however, somewhat in the dark as to the basis of his claim. There is a story that he had visited the court of Edward the Confessor and had become his vassal on condition that, should Edward die childless, he was to designate William as his successor. But Harold, Earl of Wessex, who had consolidated his power before the death of Edward by securing the appointment of his brothers to three of the other great earldoms, assumed the crown and paid no attention to William's demand that he should surrender it.
The pope favors William's claim.
Battle of Senlac, 1066. William I crowned at London.
William thereupon appealed to the pope, promising that if he came into possession of England, he would see that the English clergy submitted to the authority of the Roman bishop. Consequently the pope, Alexander II, condemned Harold and blessed in advance any expedition that William might undertake to assert his rights. The conquest of England therefore took on the character of a sort of holy war, and as the expedition had been well advertised, many adventurers flocked to William's standard. The Norman cavalry and archers proved superior to the English forces, who were on foot and were so armed that they could not fight to advantage except at close range. Harold was killed in the memorable battle of Senlac[87]and his army defeated. In a few weeks a number of influential nobles and several bishops agreed to accept William as their king, and London opened its gates to him. He was crowned on Christmas day, 1066, at Westminster.
We cannot trace the history of the opposition and the revolts of the great nobles which William had to meet within thenext few years. His position was rendered doubly difficult by troubles which he encountered on the continent as duke of Normandy. Suffice it to say that he succeeded in maintaining himself against all his enemies.[88]
William's wise policy in England.
William's policy in regard to England exhibited profound statesmanship. He introduced the Norman feudalism to which he was accustomed, but took good care that it should not weaken his power. The English who had refused to join him before the battle of Senlac were declared traitors, but were permitted to keep their lands upon condition of receiving them from the king as his vassals. The lands of those who actually bore arms against him at Senlac, or in later rebellions, including the great estates of Harold's family, were confiscated and distributed among his faithful followers, both Norman and English, though naturally the Normans among them far outnumbered the English.
He insures the supremacy of the crown without interfering with English customs.
William requires oath of fidelity from his subvassals.
William declared that he did not propose to change the English customs but to govern as Edward the Confessor, the last Saxon king whom he acknowledged, had done. He tried to learn English, maintained the Witenagemot, and observed English practices. But he was a man of too much force to submit to the control of his people. While he appointed counts or earls in some of the shires (now come to be calledcounties), he controlled them by means of other royal officers calledsheriffs. He avoided giving to any one person a great many estates in a single region, so that no one should become inconveniently powerful. Finally, in order to secure the support of the smaller landholders and to prevent combinations against him among the greater ones, he required every landholder in England to take an oath of fidelity directly to him. We read in theAnglo-Saxon Chronicle(1086): "After that he went about so that he came, on the first day of August, to Salisbury, and there came to him his wise men[i.e., counselors], and all the landowning men of property there were over all England, whosesoever men they were; and all bowed down to him and became his men, and swore oaths of fealty to him that they would be faithful to him against all other men."
Domesday Book.
William's anxiety to have a complete knowledge of his whole kingdom is indicated by a remarkable historical document, the so-calledDomesday Book. This is a register of the lands throughout England, indicating the value of each parcel, the serfs and stock upon it, the name of its holder and of the person who held it before the Conquest. This government report contained a vast amount of information which was likely to prove useful to William's taxgatherers. It is still valuable to the historian, although unfortunately he is not able in every case to interpret its terms satisfactorily.
William the Conqueror and the Church.
William's policy in regard to the Church indicates a desire to advance its interests in conjunction with his own. He called Lanfranc, an Italian who had been at the head of the famous monastery of Bec in Normandy, to the archbishopric of Canterbury. The king permitted the clergy to manage their own affairs and established bishops' courts to try a variety of cases. But homage was exacted from a bishop as from a lay vassal, and William refused to permit the pope to interfere in English affairs without his permission in each particular case. No papal legate was to enter the land without the king's sanction. No papal decree should be received in the English Church without his consent, nor his servants be excommunicated against his will. When Gregory VII demanded that he should become his vassal for the land that he had conquered under the papal auspices, William promptly refused.
General results of the Norman Conquest.
It is clear that the Norman Conquest was not a simple change of dynasty. A new element was added to the English people. We cannot tell how many Normans actually emigrated across the Channel, but they evidently came inconsiderable numbers, and their influence upon the English court and government was very great. A century after William's arrival the whole body of the nobility, the bishops, abbots, and government officials, had become practically all Norman. "Besides these, the architects and artisans who built the castles and fortresses, and the cathedrals, abbeys, and parish churches, whose erection throughout the land was such a marked characteristic of the period, were immigrants from Normandy. Merchants from the Norman cities of Rouen and Caen came to settle in London and other English cities, and weavers from Flanders were settled in various towns and even rural districts. For a short time these newcomers remained a separate people, but before the twelfth century was over they had become for the most part indistinguishable from the great mass of English people amongst whom they had come. They had nevertheless made that people stronger, more vigorous, more active-minded, and more varied in their occupations and interests" (Cheyney).[89]
Norman Gateway at Bristol, EnglandNorman Gateway at Bristol, England
William Rufus, 1087–1100, and Henry I, 1100–1135.
Civil war ending in the accession of Henry II, 1154–1189.
53.The Conqueror was followed by his sons, William Rufus and Henry I. Upon the death of the latter the country went through a terrible period of civil war, for someof the nobility supported the Conqueror's grandson Stephen, and some his granddaughter Matilda. After the death of Stephen, when Henry II, Matilda's son,[90]was finally recognized in 1154 by all as king, he found the kingdom in a melancholy state. The nobles had taken advantage of the prevalent disorder to erect castles without royal permission and establish themselves as independent rulers. Mercenaries had been called in from the continent by the rivals for the throne, and had become a national plague.
Henry's difficulties and his success in meeting them.
Henry at once adopted vigorous measures. He destroyed the illegally erected fortresses, sent off the mercenaries, and deprived many earls who had been created by Stephen and Matilda of their titles. Henry II's task was a difficult one. He had need of all his indefatigable energy and quickness of mind to restore order in England and at the same time rule the wide realms on the continent which he had either inherited or gained through his marriage with the heiress of the dukes of Guienne.[91]Although he spent the greater part of his reign across the Channel, he still found time to be one of the greatest of all England's rulers.
His reforms in the judicial system.
The grand jury.
In order that he might maintain his prerogatives as judge of disputes among his subjects and avoid all excuse for the private warfare, which was such a persistent evil on the continent, he undertook to improve and reform the system of royal courts. He arranged that his judges should make regular circuits throughout the country, so that they might try cases on the spot at least once a year. He established the famous Court of King's Bench to try all other cases which came under the king's jurisdiction. This was composed of five judges from his council, two clergymen, and three laymen. We find, too, the beginning of our grand jury in a body of men in each neighborhood who were to be duly sworn in, from time to time, and should then bring accusations against such malefactors as had come to their knowledge.
The Plantagenet Possessions in England and FranceThe Plantagenet Possessions in England and France
Trial by jury.
The common law.
As for the petty or smaller jury, which actually tried the accused, its origin and history are obscure. It did not originate with Henry II, but he systematized trial by jury and made it a settled law of the land instead of an exceptional favor. The plan of delegating the duty of determining the guilt or innocence of a suspected person to a dozen members of the community who were sworn to form their opinion without partiality was very different from the earlier systems. It resembled neither the Roman trial, where the judges made the decision, nor the mediæval compurgation and ordeals, where God was supposed to pronounce the verdict. In all legal matters the decisions of Henry's judges were so sagacious and consistent that they became the basis of the common law which is still used in all English-speaking countries.
Henry II and Thomas à Becket.
Becket as chancellor.
Henry's reign was embittered by the famous struggle with Thomas à Becket, which illustrates admirably the peculiar dependence of the monarchs of his day upon the churchmen. Becket was born in London. He early entered one of the lower orders of the Church, but grew up in the service of the crown, and was able to aid Henry in gaining the throne. Thereupon the new king made him his chancellor. Becket proved an excellent minister and defended the king's interest even against the Church, of which he was also an officer. He was fond of hunting and of warlike enterprisesand maintained a brilliant court from the revenues of the numerous church benefices which he held. It appeared to Henry that there could be no better head for the English clergy than his sagacious and worldly chancellor. He therefore determined to make him Archbishop of Canterbury. The kings of that time often chose their most efficient officers from among the prelates. Lanfranc, for example, had been the Conqueror's chief minister. There were several good reasons for this practice. The clergy were not only far better educated than laymen but they were also not ordinarily dangerous as military leaders, nor could their offices become hereditary.
Made Archbishop of Canterbury, Becket defends the cause of the Church against the king.
In appointing Becket Archbishop of Canterbury, Henry intended to insure his own complete control of the Church. He proposed to bring clerical criminals before the royal courts and punish them like other offenders, to make the bishops meet all the feudal obligations, and to prevent appeals to the pope. Becket, however, immediately resigned his chancellorship, gave up his gay life, and opposed every effort of the king to reduce the independence of the Church. After a haughty assertion of the supremacy of the spiritual power over the secular government, Thomas fled from the wrathful and disappointed monarch to France and the protection of the pope.
Murder of Becket and Henry's remorse.
In spite of a patched-up reconciliation with the king, Becket proceeded to excommunicate or suspend some of the great English prelates and, as Henry believed, was conspiring to rob his son of the crown. In a fit of anger, Henry exclaimed among his followers, "Is there no one to avenge me of this miserable clerk?" Unfortunately certain knights took the rash expression literally, and Becket was murdered in Canterbury cathedral, whither he had returned. The king had really had no wish to resort to violence, and his sorrow and remorse when he heard of the dreadful deed, and his terror at the consequences, were most genuine. The pope proposed to excommunicate the king. Henry, however, made peace withthe papal legates by the solemn assertion that he had never wished the death of Thomas and by promising to return to Canterbury all the property which he had confiscated, to send money to aid in the capture of the Holy Sepulcher at Jerusalem, and to undertake a crusade himself.[92]
Richard the Lion-Hearted, 1189–1199.
John, 1199–1216.
54.Henry's later years were troubled by the machinations of Philip Augustus of France and by the quarrels and treason of his own sons, of which some account has already been given.[93]He was followed by his son, the picturesque Richard the Lion-Hearted, one of the most romantic figures of the Middle Ages. He was, however, a poor ruler, who spent but a few months of his ten years' reign in England. He died in 1199 and was succeeded by his brother John, from all accounts one of the most detestable persons who has ever worn a crown. His reign was, nevertheless, a notable one in the annals of England. In the first place, he lost a great part of the possessions of his house upon the continent (Normandy, Brittany, Anjou, etc.); secondly, he was forced by a revolt of his people, who refused to endure his despotism any longer, to grant the Great Charter. The loss of his lands across the Channel has already been described; it remains only to speak of the winning of the Great Charter of English liberties.[94]
The granting of the Great Charter, 1215.
When, in 1213, John proposed to lead his English vassals across the water in order to attempt to reconquer his lost possessions, they refused to accompany him on the ground that their feudal obligations did not bind them to fight outside of their country. Moreover, they showed a lively discontent with John's despotism and his neglect of those limits of the kingly power which several of the earlier Norman kings had solemnly recognized. In 1214 a number of the barons met and took a solemn oath to compel the king, by arms if necessary, to confirma charter containing the things which, according to English traditions, a king might not do. It proved necessary to march against John, whom the insurgent nobles met at Runnymede, not far from London. Here on the 15th of June, 1215, they forced him to swear to observe the rights of the nation, as they conceived them, which they had carefully written out.
The provisions of the Charter and its importance.
The Great Charter is perhaps the most famous document in the history of government;[95]its provisions furnish a brief and comprehensive statement of the burning governmental questions of the age. It was really the whole nation, not merely the nobles, who concluded this great treaty with a tyrannous ruler. The rights of the commoner are guarded as well as those of the noble. As the king promises to observe the liberties and customs of his vassals and not to abuse his feudal prerogatives, so the vassals agree to observe the rights of their men. The merchant is not to be deprived of his goods for small offenses, nor the farmer of his wagon and implements. The king is to impose no tax, beside the three stated feudal aids,[96]except by the consent of the great council of the nation. This is to include the prelates and greater barons and all who hold directly of the king.
There is no more notable clause in the Charter than that which provides that no one is to be arrested or imprisoned or deprived of his property unless he be immediately sent before a court of his peers for trial. To realize the importance of this, we must recollect that in France, down to 1789, the king exercised such unlimited powers that he could order the arrest of any one he pleased, and could imprison him for any length of time without bringing him to trial, or even informing him of the nature of his offense. The Great Charter provided further that the king should permit merchants tomove about freely and should observe the privileges of the various towns; nor were his officers longer to exercise despotic powers over those under them.
"The Great Charter is the first great public act of the nation after it has realized its own identity, the consummation of the work for which unconsciously kings, prelates, and lawyers have been laboring for a century. There is not a word in it that recalls the distinctions of race and blood, or that maintains the differences of English and Norman law. It is in one view the summing up of a period of national life, in another the starting-point of a new period, not less eventful than that which it closes" (Stubbs).
In spite of his solemn confirmation of the Charter, John, with his accustomed treachery, made a futile attempt to abrogate his engagements; but neither he nor his successors ever succeeded in getting rid of the document. Later there were times when the English kings evaded its provisions and tried to rule as absolute monarchs. But the people always sooner or later bethought them of the Charter, which thus continued to form an effective barrier against permanent despotism in England.
Henry III, 1216–1272.
55.During the long reign of John's son, Henry III, England began to construct her Parliament, an institution which has not only played a most important rôle in English history, but has also served as the model for similar bodies in almost every civilized state in the world. Henry's fondness for appointing foreigners to office, his anxiety to enjoy powers which he had not the intelligence or energy to justify by the use he made of them, and his willingness to permit the pope to levy taxes in England, led the nobles to continue their hostility to the crown. The nobles and the people of the towns, who were anxious to check the arbitrary powers of the king, joined forces in what is known as the War of the Barons. They found a leader in the patriotic Simon de Montfort, who proved himself a valiant and unselfish defender of the rights of the nation.
The English Parliament.
The older Witenagemot of Saxon times, as well as the Great Council of the Norman kings, was a meeting of nobles, bishops, and abbots, which the king summoned from time to time to give him advice and aid, and to sanction important governmental undertakings. During Henry's reign its meetings became more frequent and its discussions more vigorous than before, and the nameParliamentbegan to be applied to it.
Simon de Montfort summons the commons to Parliament.
In 1265 a famous Parliament was held, where, through the influence of Simon de Montfort, a most important new class of members—thecommons—was present, which was destined to give it its future greatness. In addition to the nobles and prelates, the sheriffs were ordered to summon two simple knights from each county and two citizens from each of the more flourishing towns to attend and take part in the discussions.
The Model Parliament of Edward I, 1295.
Edward I, the next king, definitely adopted this innovation. He doubtless called in the representatives of the towns because the townspeople were becoming rich and he wished to have an opportunity to ask them to make grants to meet the expenses of the government. He also wished to obtain the approval of all classes when he determined upon important measures affecting the whole realm. Since the Model Parliament of 1295, the commons, or representatives of the people, have always been included along with the clergy and nobility when the national assembly of England has been summoned. We shall see later how the present houses of Lords and Commons came into existence under Edward's son.
England in the fourteenth century.
From the reign of Edward I we are, as a distinguished English historian has well said, "face to face with modern England. Kings, Lords, Commons, the courts of justice, ... the relations of Church and State, in a great measure the framework of society itself, have all taken the shape which they still essentially retain" (Green). The English language was, moreover, about to become the speech we use to-day.
Contrast between the development of Germany and France.
56.The history of the kingship in the eastern, or German, part of Charlemagne's empire is very different from that in France, which was reviewed in a previous chapter. After a struggle of four hundred years, it had become clear by the thirteenth century that the successors of Louis the German (Charlemagne's grandson) could not make of Germany a kingdom such as St. Louis left to his descendants. From the thirteenth century down to Napoleon's time there was no Germany in a political sense, but only a great number of practically independent states, great and small. It was but a generation ago that, under the leadership of Prussia,—a kingdom unknown until many centuries after Charlemagne's time,—the previously independent kingdoms, principalities, and free towns were formed into the federation now known as the German empire.