and before the end of April, the island was entirely evacuated by the French troops.*

The Sicilians, terrified at their own boldness, sent deputies to implore the pardon of Martin IV. and his intercession with their king; but the only reply that was given bade them think of self-defence, if such were possible. To prepare themselves against the vengeance of Charles, they called the King of Aragon to their aid. All the efforts of their enraged enemy were unsuccessful before the walls of Messina, and his fleet was burnt by Loria, who also had the good fortune to make his son prisoner, 1284. In the following year the invader died, the victim of disappointed ambition. Charles II. was restored to liberty by a treaty which he did not observe; and the King of Aragon, attacked by France, Castile, and Rome, was constrained to abandon Sicily. In 1303, his brother Frederick, who was soon elected to fill his place, by his talents confirmed the independence of the people, and the pope was compelled to acknowledge him as sovereign.

FRANCE.

BATTLE OF BOUVINES, 1214.-When John succeeded to the English throne in 1199, Philip supported a pretender in the person of Arthur of Brittany, grandson of Henry II. This prince fell into the hands of his uncle, and was murdered; upon which Philip Augustus summoned John to appear and answer the charges made against him, as vassal of the crown of France. On his refusal, Philip confiscated his fiefs, seized on Normandy, Maine, Anjou, and Poitou, leaving him Guienne alone. John was compelled to submit in silence, but soon finding a favourable opportunity, he united with the French barons, the Earl of Flanders, Otho IV., and the Earl of Boulogne, in a formidable league against the French king. All had just cause of complaint, and all were ready to assert their rights by force of arms. Not fewer than 200,000 men combined against Philip, while 70,000 were the whole he could bring into the field under the Bishops of Senlis and Beauvais. But nevertheless he was victorious; and thus the safety of

The French were long taught to remember this bloody lesson. "If I am provoked," said Henry IV., "I will breakfast at Milan, and dine at Naples."-" Your majesty," replied the Spanish ambassador, "may perhaps arrive in Sicily for vespers." To the credit of the Sicilian character, it should not be forgotten that the single Frenchman (William Porcelet) who had not disregarded the laws of justice and humanity, was, together with his family, safely conveyed to Italy.

P

John's continental possessions was endangered, and the French monarchy more respected. The last years of Philip's reign were spent in tranquillity, though disturbances prevailed all around him.

LOUIS VIII., 1223, was diverted from the wars with the English in France to prosecute his crusade against the Albigenses. For a long period the southern provinces had been insulated from the northern, and the Count of Toulouse, the most powerful baron in those parts, was also one of the richest princes in Europe; but his wealth and the premature civilisation which was the consequence, had drawn the people away from the church of Rome. The reformers spread over Languedoc had already refused to recognise the spiritual authority of the pope, who, denouncing them as schismatics, lighted up a terrible war, which desolated one of the fairest portions of Europe. "Innocent III.," says the President Hénault, "was the soul of this war, Dominic was its apostle, the Count of Toulouse the victim, and Simon, earl of Montfort, the chief." Louis VIII. marched against these opponents of the Romish church with 200,000 men. After some resistance he took Avignon, which, strengthened by 300 houses fortified with towers, had been considered almost impregnable. Many cities in Languedoc opened their gates to him; but a contagious disease spread among his troops, and he himself being seized with the disorder, withdrew to Montpensier in Auvergne, where he died, 1226. Louis IX., surnamed the Saint, being only eleven years old at the death of his father, his minority was spent under the regency of his mother, the excellent Blanche of Castile. Though the first fifteen years of his reign were one continued struggle against his refractory barons, his moderation and virtue, nevertheless, increased the influence of the monarchy. A series of destructive campaigns was avoided by his surrender of Guienne to Henry III. of England; and the security of his people was maintained by his "Establishments," a code of feudal customs, the first monument of legislation raised by the Capetian family. But Louis was superstitious, and this led to his two unfortunate crusades, in the last of which, 1270, he met his death at the siege of Tunis.

St Louis united several provinces to his crown without the cost of one drop of blood. The alliances of his brothers, Alphonso and Charles, prepared for the union of Languedoc and Provence; Blois and Chartres were purchased from the Count of Champagne, 1247; Nismes and Carcassone were gained by renouncing the feudal sovereignty of Barcelona, 1258; and the treaty of Abbeville with the English in 1259 consolidated the conquests made

during the reign of Philip Augustus. From his impartiality, St Louis was frequently chosen as mediator in the quarrels of his time: he endeavoured to reconcile the Duke of Brittany with the King of Navarre the latter with the King of England-Henry III. with his barons-and Gregory IX. with the Emperor Frederick II. In all his transactions with the court of Rome, he firmly but respectfully defended the rights of his crown, and by his Pragmatic Sanction,* 1268, established the liberties of the Gallican church.

Louis IX. prudently continued the work begun under the auspices of Philip Augustus, of increasing the royal power by controlling his vassals, not, however, without due respect to such rights as were consecrated by age, although originally usurped by violence. For the first time deputies of the citizens were admitted into certain public assemblies. The administration of justice was reformed by wise institutions and by the influence of the "Establishments;" the limits of civil and ecclesiastical jurisdiction were clearly determined by the orders of 1235; and the traders' companies regulated by useful decrees. Müller, speaking of St Louis, observes, that the empire of the Franks was founded by arms; but royalty in France was consolidated by the virtues of this monarch.

PHILIP III. the Bold considerably increased the royal domain by the addition of Poitou and Auvergne, 1271; while circumstances, arising out of the death of Theobald II. on his return from Tunis, eventually gave Champagne and Navarre to the French crown. By these acquisitions, and that of the earldom of Toulouse, the king became on a sudden very powerful in the south. But he was not successful in the Sicilian war, undertaken to defend his uncle Charles of Anjou against Aragon. Having marched an army into Spain, he died on his return to France, at Perpignan, 1285.

PHILIP IV. the Fair was bent upon the aggrandizement of the monarchy by the reduction of the five great fiefs, Champagne, Guienne, Flanders, Burgundy, and Brittany. The first he obtained by marriage; the second he got possession of by stratagem, but was compelled to restore in 1303; his attempt on the third was defeated by the terrible rout of Courtray, 1302, in which the Flemings took 4000 pairs of gilt spurs, worn only by knights. The various difficulties in which this king was involved, by the depreciation of the coinage and his disputes with the clergy, led to the convention of the statesgeneral, 1302. Profiting by a quarrel between some Norman and English sailors, he commenced a war with England, and took, with little resistance, all the strong places of Guienne

*This regulation in matters of religion is commonly, but perhaps without foundation, attributed to Louis IX. A similar usage in episcopal elections was established by the famous pragmatic sanction of Charles VII., drawn up in an assembly of the French church held at Bourges, 1438, which contains certain regulations for ecclesiastical discipline in conformity with the canons of the council of Basle. This rule, which was intended by the Gallican church as a barrier against the encroachments of the papal court, was revoked by the concordat of Bologna in 1516, between Francis I. and Leo X.

and Gascony. Edward I. was then too much engaged with the Scottish war to defend his continental possessions; but he menaced France with a formidable league in the north. The defeat of the Flemings suspended the contest; and, by the treaty of Montreuil sur Mer, Edward espoused, in 1299, Philip's sister, Margaret.

MAGNA CHARTA.-JOHN, 1199, the murderer of his nephew Arthur, fell under the ban of the pope, and provoked his subjects to revolt. All the exactions usual to Norman kings were not only redoubled, but mingled with outrages still more in

tolerable by this prince, who was not less contemptible for his folly than his cowardice. It was a fortunate circumstance that England was not at this period parcelled out like France into numerous petty states, separated from each other by laws, manners, and privileges. When the country rose as one man against his tyranny, John was isolated; there was no province on which he could depend for support by concessions and privileges detrimental to the rest. He was therefore compelled to relax the severity of the forest laws, and to sign the GREAT CHARTER, 1215, the keystone of English liberty. "All that has since been obtained," says Hallam, “is little more than as confirmation or commentary; and if every subsequent law were to be swept away, there would still remain the bold features that distinguish a free from a despotic monarchy." Sir J. Mackintosh observes, that “to have produced the Great Charter, to have preserved it, to have matured it, constitute the immortal claim of England on the esteem of mankind.” This is what some rash men were about to exchange for the dominion of France in 1213. The attempt of John to annul the charter was happily frustrated by his death; but he had already suffered the continental possessions of England to be diminished by surrendering to the French monarch, without a struggle, Normandy, Anjou, Touraine, and Maine, 1205. A quarrel with Innocent III. caused the kingdom to be laid under an interdict. The churches were closed, the sacraments withheld from all but children and dying persons; and the dead were buried without prayers in unhallowed ground. John was at length compelled to yield, promising to do homage for his dominions, and to pay an annual tribute of 1000 marks. His character may be summed up in the words of Juvenal, "Monstrum nullâ virtute redemptum a vitiis."

Remarks on the Great Charter.

On the English nation the charter has contributed to combine stability with improvement. It set the first example of the progress of a great people in blending popular pretensions and the power of the nobles with a vaguely limited monarchy, so as at length to form, from these discordant materials, the only kind of free government which experience has shown to be reconcileable with widely extended dominion.

Prepare: A sketch of Magna Charta, with the names of its chief promoters.

HENRY III., 1216, succeeded his father at the age of ten years. His minority was passed in peace and without any important event, under the successive guardianship of the Earl of Pembroke and Hubert de Burgh. As soon as he attained his