kingdoms of England and Ireland, together with all the " rights belonging to them; and will hold them of the pope. of his vassal. I will be faithful to God, to the "church of Rome, to the pope my lord, and to his suc"cessors lawfully elected; and I bind myself to pay him tribute of one thousand marks of silver yearly; to "wit, seven hundred for the kingdom of England, and "three hundred for Ireland 27." “ a Part of the money was immediately paid to the legate, as an earnest of the subjection of the kingdom: after which the cown and sceptre were also delivered to him. The insolent Italian trampled the money under his feet, indicating thereby the pope's superiority and the king's dependent state, and kept the regalia five days; then returned them to John, as a favour from the pope, their common master. During this shameful negociation, the French monarch waited impatiently at Boulogne for the legate's return, in order to put to sea. The legate at length returned; and the king, to his utter astonishment, was given to understand, that he was no longer permitted to attack England, which was become a fief of the church of Rome, and its king a vassal of the holy see. Philip was enraged at this intelligence: he swore he would no longer be the dupe of such hypocritical pretences; nor would he have desisted from his enterprize but for weightier reasons. His fleet was utterly destroyed by that of England; and the emperor Otho IV. who at once disputed the empire with Frederick II. son to Henry VI. and Italy with the pope, as we shall afterwards have occasion to see, had entered into an alliance with his uncle, the king of England, in order to oppose the designs of France, now become formidable to the rest of Europe. With this view he put himself at the head of a prodigious force; and the French monarch seemed in danger of being crushed for having grasped at a present proffered him by the pope. 27. Rymer, vol. i. M. Paris, Hist Major. VOL. I. 3 B Philip, Philip, however, advanced undismayed to meet his enemies, with an army of fifty thousand chosen men, commanded by the chief nobility of France, and including twelve hundred knights, and between six and seven thousand gens-d'armes. The emperor Otho, on the other side, had with him the earl of Salisbury, bastard brother to king John, the count of Flanders, the duke of Brabant, seven or eight German princes, and a force superior to that of Philip. The two armies met near the village of Bouvines, between Lisle and Tournay, where the allies were totally routed, and thirty thousand Germans are said to have been slain28. This victory established for ever the glory of Philip, and gave full security to all his dominions. John could therefore hope for nothing farther, than henceforth to rule his own kingdom in peace; and his close alliance with the pope, which he was determined at any price to maintain, ensured him, as he imagined, the certain attainment of that felicity. How much was he deceived! A truce was indeed concluded with France, but the most grievous scene of this prince's misfortunes still awaited him. He was doomed to humble himself before his own subjects, that the rights of Englishmen might be restored, and the privileges of humanity secured and ascertained. The conquest of England by William the Norman, and the introduction of the feudal government into the kingdom, had much infringed the liberties of the natives. The whole people were reduced to a state of vassalage under the king or barons, and even the greater part of them to a state of actual slavery. The necessity also of devolving great power into the hands of a prince who was to maintain a military dominion over a vanquished nation, had induced the Norman barons to subject themselves to a more absolute authority, as I have already had occasion to observe, than men of their rank commonly submitted to in other feudal governments; so that England 28. Gul. Brit. Fit Phil. August. Nag. Chron. P. mil. during the course of an hundred and fifty years had groaned under a tyranny unknown to all the kingdoms founded by the northern conquerors. Prerogatives once exalted are not easily reduced. Different concessions had been made by different princes, in order to serve their temporary purposes; but these were soon disregarded and the same unlimited authority continued to be exercised both by them and their successors. The feeble reign of John, a prince equally odious and contemptible to the whole nation, seemed therefore to afford all ranks of men a happy opportunity of recovering their natural and constitutional rights;-and it was not neglected. A. D. 1215. The barons entered into a confederacy, and formally demanded a restoration of their privileges; and, that their cause might wear the greater appearance of justice, they also included those of the clergy and the people. They took arms to enforce their request: they laid waste the royal domains: and John, after employing a variety of expedients, in order to divert the blow aimed at the prerogatives of his crown, was obliged to lower himself, and treat with his subjects. A conference was held between the king and the barons at Runnemede, between Windsor and Stains; a spot ever since deservedly celebrated, and even hallowed by every zealous lover of liberty. There John, after a debate of some days, signed and sealed the JUNE 19. famous Magna Charta, or GREAT CHARTER; which either granted or secured very important privileges to every order of men in the kingdom-to the barons, to the clergy, and to the people. What these privileges particularly were you will best learn, my dear Philip, from the charter itself, which deserves your most early and continued attention, as it involves all the great out-lines of a legal government, and provides for the equal distribution of justice, and free enjoyment of property; the chief objects for which political society was first founded by men, which the people have a perpetual and unalienable right to recall, and which no time, time, nor precedent, nor statute, nor positive institution, ought to deter them from keeping ever uppermost in their thoughts29. The better to secure the execution of this charter, the barons stipulated with the king for the privileges of choosing twenty-five members of their own order, as conservators of the public liberties: and no bounds were set to the authority of these noblemen, either in extent or duration. If complaint was made of a violation of he charter, any four of the conservators might admonish the king to redress the grievance; and if satisfaction was not obtained, they could assemble the whole council of twenty-five. This august body, in conjunction with the great council of the nation, was empowered to compel him to observe the charter: and in case of resistance, might levy war against him. All men throughout the kingdom were bound, under penalty of confiscation, to swear obedience to the five and twenty barons; and the freeholders of each county were to chuse twelve knights, who should make report of such evil customs as required redress, conformable to the tenor of the Great Charter30. In what manner John acted after granting the charter, and under these regulations, to which he seemed passively to submit, together with their influence on the English constitution, and on the affairs of France, we shall afterwards have occasion to see. At present we must cast our eyes on the other states of Europe. ་་ 29. The most valuable stipulation in this charter, and the grand security of the lives, liberties, and properties of Englishmen, was the following concession. "No freeman shall be apprehended or imprisoned, or disseised, or outlawed, or banished, or any other way destroyed; nor "will we go upon him, nor will we send upon him, except by the legal "judgment of bis peers, or by the law of the land." (Mag. Chart. Art. xxxii.) The stipulation next in importance seems to be the singular concession, that "no man will we sell, to no man will we delay right "and justice." (Ibid. Art. xxxiii.) These concessions shew, in a very strong ight, the violences and iniquitous practices of the Anglo-Norman princes. 30. M. Paris. Rymer, vol. i. LETTER LETTER XXXI. THE GERMAN EMPIRE AND ITS DEPENDENCIES, ROME AND THE ITALIAN STATES, FROM THE ACCESSION OF HENRY VI. TO THE ELECTION OF RODOLPH OF HAPSBURG, FOUNDER OF THE HOUSE OF AUSTRIA, WITH A CONTINUATION OF THE HISTORY OF THE CRUSADES. IT is necessary, my dear Philip, that I should here recapitulate a little; for there is no portion of Modern History more perplexed, than that under review. The emperor, Frederic Barbarossa, died, as you have seen, in his expedition to the Holy Land; and his son, Henry VI. received almost at the same time intelligence of the death of his father and his brother in-law, William king of Naples and Sicily, A. D. 1190. to whose dominions he was heir in right of his wife. After settling the affairs of Germany, he levied an army, and marched into Italy, in order to be crowned by the pope, and go with the empress Constantia to recover the succession of Sicily, which was usurped by Tancred, her natural brother. With this view he endeavoured to conciliate the affections of the Lombards, by enlarging the privileges of Genoa, Pisa, and other cities, in his way to Rome. There the ceremony of coronation A. D. 1191. was performed, the day after Easter, by Celestine III. accompanied with a very remarkable circumstance. That pope, who was then in his eighty-sixth year, had no sooner placed the crown upon Henry's head, than he kicked it off again; as a testimony of the power residing in the sovereign pontiff, to make and unmake emperors'. Henry now prepared for the conquest of Naples and Sicily, in which he was opposed by the pope. For although 1. R. Hoveden. Annal. Heiss. lib. ii. Celestine |