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LANG- and for discovering himself inclined to renounce the adTON, Abp. Cant. mirable institution of Christianity: God Almighty knows, that were I at liberty to choose my persuasion, Christianity should certainly be my religion." In short; Miramolin, for that was this prince's name, despised king John for making so scandalous an offer, and refused to engage with him.

Id. p. 243. et deinc.

This embassy, though very privately carried on, was afterwards discovered by Robert, above mentioned, in the Id. p. 245. hearing of Matthew Paris.

422.

See Re

cords, num.

32.

The legate behaves in

That the king was too much swayed by interest and passion, and far from having a due regard for the Christian religion, appears by his favour to the Jews. These men, though they impoverished the subject with excessive usury, yet by paying the king a large consideration for this liberty, they were serviceable to the exchequer. Upon this view, the king granted them the privilege of a sort of high priest. The patent runs durante vita, to one Rabbi Jacob, of London, who, by virtue of this grant, had a superintendency over all the Jews in England conveyed to him.

The king being refused by the Mahometans and hampered by the English barons, applied once more to the court of Rome. And here Matthew Paris gives the pope a very hard character, charges him with excessive pride and covetousness, and that a good sum of money would bribe him to any wickedness. The king, therefore, who knew his temper, made him a large remittance, and promised a farther sum, provided his holiness would find a pretext to mortify the archbishop of Canterbury, and excommunicate the English barons.

The pope, not unmindful of the English affairs, dispatched an arbitra- his legate Nicholas, bishop of Tusculum, to king John. He ry manner. arrived in England towards the latter end of this year, and receiving an enlargement of his commission for filling the vacancies, he behaved in an arbitrary manner. For, as the historian reports, not taking the advice of the archbishop, and his suffragans, he suffered himself to be swayed by the court clergy, promoted persons unqualified to sees and abbeys; and filled several parochial churches with his own Matt. Paris, favourite clerks, without applying to the patrons for their

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archbishop.

The next year, about the octaves of Epiphany, the arch- JOHN, bishop of Canterbury convened his suffragans at Dunstable. K. of Eng. At this meeting the legate was complained of for being too 4. D. 1214. The filling much in the court interest, and encroaching upon the liber- of the sees of the proties of the Church: his filling the sees without consulting vince claimthe English prelates, was looked upon as a downright intru- ed by the sion, and breach of canon. This matter being thoroughly debated, two clerks were dispatched to the legate, then at Burton-upon-Trent, to desire him in the archbishop's name, not to presume to fill up the vacancies with prelates in his province. That the stretching his legatine commission to such a length was injurious to the archbishop of Canterbury, to whom the management of those matters properly belonged. The legate, notwithstanding he knew the archbishop had appealed to the pope, took no notice of his remonstrance: however, he sent Pandulphus to Rome to prepare the pope for his purpose. This agent, according to his instructions, represented the English prelates as too stiff in their demands of damages, and blackened the archbishop of Canterbury to that degree, that the pope would not so much as hear Simon Langton, in his brother the archbishop's defence. It was thought, the pope was most strongly prepossessed to this partiality by the king's repeating his submission, and sending his holiness another resignation of his crown.

The legate having received instructions from the pope to take off the censure, convened the bishops at Reading, and relaxed the interdict, after it had continued six years and three months.

Paris, p. 248.

This year, October the 18th, John de Gray, bishop of Norwich, departed this life. He was first archdeacon of Glocester, and consecrated to this see by Hubert, archbishop of Canterbury, A. D. 1200. He was a prelate very learned in the common laws, well qualified for the business of the state, and always firm to the crown. King John made him lord deputy of Ireland, in which post he managed to great Angl. Sacr. commendation. Afterwards the king sent him upon an em- 410. bassy to Rome. He died in his return, near Poictiers in Sir James France, and lies buried in the cathedral of Norwich.

part 1. p.

Ware's Annals of the

affairs of

This year the pope sent king John a return of civility for Ireland, p. the extraordinary regard he had paid to the see of Rome. 42.

LANG- The favour is a sort of exemption from the discipline of the TON, Abp. Cant. English prelates. For the bull decrees that the king's person should not be excommunicated, or his chapel put under an interdict, without particular instructions from the apostolick see. Now, had the king's supreme ecclesiastical jurisdiction been the doctrine of these times, the pope had a very untoward way of paying his compliment. In this case the bull would have been looked on as an affront; and to what purpose should the pope then have sent it? But if the bull was thought to carry something of favour and extom. 1. p. traordinary privilege in it, it will be hard to reconcile this Coke's Re- precedent to sir Edward Coke's reasoning upon this argu

Fœdera, Conventiones, &c.

183.

ports, part

5.

The arch

bishop's se

ment.

In the beginning of the next year, at Christmas, the king curity to the kept his court at Worcester; here the barons petitioned for barons for the laws of Edward the Confessor, and other liberties menthe king. A. D. 1215. tioned in the charter of king Henry I., putting him in

Id. p.

423.

Ibid.

mind, at the same time, that he had sworn to grant them these liberties at his late absolution. The king, perceiving the barons resolved, and prepared to contest the point, promised to give them satisfaction at Easter following; and, to make them easy in the meantime, the archbishop of Canterbury, the bishop of Ely, and William Marshall, earl of Pembroke, undertook for the performance. The king, in the meantime, to secure himself against the practices of the 253. barons, had the oaths of homage and allegiance repeated, by virtue of which the subject was to stand by him against all persons whatsoever. And, for a farther provision, he undertook the crusade on Candlemas day following. By this engagement, as has been observed already, he lay under the protection of the see of Rome.

After Easter, the barons convening themselves at Brackley, the king sent the archbishop of Canterbury and the earl of Pembroke to require a copy of their demands. The barons gave these ministers a schedule of the old laws and usages of the kingdom, with menaces of force upon refusal. The king, when the draught was read, rejected the petition with indignation, and swore he would never be so lavish in his grants of liberty as to make himself a slave.

The barons, thus denied, gave Robert Fitz-Walter the command of their forces, and styled him the General of the

K. of Eng.

army of God and holy Church; but, notwithstanding these JOHN, specious pretences, it is plain their taking up arms against the king was altogether indefensible, and a direct breach of their oaths of allegiance and homage.

However, the revolters growing numerous, and London Id. p. 255. falling in with the defection, the king was distressed, and obliged to come to terms. The treaty was set on foot on the 15th of June, at Runnymede, between Staines and Windsor. The king's commissioners were the archbishop of Canterbury and Dublin, the bishops of London, Winchester, Lincoln, Bath, Worcester, Coventry, and Rochester, besides several earls and barons. I mention the ecclesiasticks at large, to show the loyalty of the prelates, and that the cry of liberty and property could not debauch them from their duty to the crown. At the conclusion of the debate, the king granted them two charters; the first is exactly the same with Magna Charta, passed in the succeeding reign. There is one thing remarkable in the second charter, 4 remarkcalled Charta de Foresta; by a clause in this charter, in able clause in the forest case there was any failure in the articles on king John's charter. part, it was lawful for the barons to apply to force, to make Id. p. 321. war upon the crown, to seize the king's castles, and distress him in his revenues and jurisdiction, till they had satisfaction given them. But with this proviso, that neither the king, his queen, nor his children, were to suffer any outrage; and besides, after reparation was once made, they were bound to return the administration into the king's hands, and submit as formerly, and had no liberty to depose him or set up another.

Id. p. 261.
The freedom

of elections
of bishops
Magna

King John's first charter begins with the liberties of the Church, and sets forth that the Church of England shall have all her rights and privileges without diminution or dis- secured by turbance. And here, the freedom of electing bishops is Charta. styled the most necessary and fundamental privilege of the Church of England. "Which branch of their right," says the king, "we have formerly secured to them by our charter, and procured a confirmation of it from his present holiness, pope Innocent III."

The charter the king refers to was passed the last year, before the war between him and the barons broke out.

And here the king, with the consent of the barons, gives

LANG- up his claim and interest in the election of bishops or abbots; TON, so that, for the future, the chapters and convents had full Abp. Cant. liberty to fill their respective sees and governments of abbeys, upon a vacancy. It is true, they were obliged to petition the crown for leave to proceed to a choice; but in case they should be denied by the king or his successors, they might make their election notwithstanding.

See Re

cords, num. 33.

Paris, p.

256.

This grant was farther confirmed in the king's first charter to the barons above mentioned; which being the same with the Magna Charta granted by his son, king Henry III., it evidently appears that the freedom of elections to bishopricks is a branch of Magna Charta, and equally guarded with the rest of the liberties of the constitution.

The king, extremely dissatisfied with these charters to the barons, sent an embassy to Rome, to complain of the proceedings. The ambassadors set forth, that the barons had raised a rebellion, and forced the king upon unreasonable concessions, and gave him a copy of the charters above mentioned. The pope was highly disgusted with the contents, and swore by St. Peter that the English crown, of which himself was the sovereign, should not be so unhandThe pope somely used. Upon this, he summons the cardinals, and, charters and by the consent of the conclave, pronounces the charters excommuni- void. The grounds on which he proceeded are mentioned barons. in the bull directed to king John. Amongst other things,

annuls the

cates the

he takes notice that the barons had broken their oath of allegiance, and made themselves judges in their own cause, seized the king's revenue, and proceeded to acts of open hostility; that supposing the king had oppressed them, these Id. p. 266. methods were unjustifiable by the constitution.

About the same time the pope wrote to the English barons to persuade them to resign the advantage of the charters. He tells them, these liberties were extorted by force, and gained by illegal practices. That therefore they ought to relinquish their claim, and refer themselves to the king's justice; and that himself would take care they should not Id. p. 267. be overcharged with the weight of the prerogative.

These admonitions of the pope made no impression upon the barons, who resolved to maintain their ground. And since the king delayed to put them in possession of the articles, they took the field against him.

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