Chapter XIV - England Under King John, Called Lackland

by Charles Dickens

　　At two-and-thirty years of age, John became King of England. Hispretty little nephew Arthur had the best claim to the throne; butJohn seized the treasure, and made fine promises to the nobility,and got himself crowned at Westminster within a few weeks after hisbrother Richard's death. I doubt whether the crown could possiblyhave been put upon the head of a meaner coward, or a moredetestable villain, if England had been searched from end to end tofind him out.

　　The French King, Philip, refused to acknowledge the right of Johnto his new dignity, and declared in favour of Arthur. You must notsuppose that he had any generosity of feeling for the fatherlessboy; it merely suited his ambitious schemes to oppose the King ofEngland. So John and the French King went to war about Arthur.

　　He was a handsome boy, at that time only twelve years old. He wasnot born when his father, Geoffrey, had his brains trampled out atthe tournament; and, besides the misfortune of never having known afather's guidance and protection, he had the additional misfortuneto have a foolish mother (Constance by name), lately married to herthird husband. She took Arthur, upon John's accession, to theFrench King, who pretended to be very much his friend, and who madehim a Knight, and promised him his daughter in marriage; but, whocared so little about him in reality, that finding it his interestto make peace with King John for a time, he did so without theleast consideration for the poor little Prince, and heartlesslysacrificed all his interests.

　　Young Arthur, for two years afterwards, lived quietly; and in thecourse of that time his mother died. But, the French King thenfinding it his interest to quarrel with King John again, again madeArthur his pretence, and invited the orphan boy to court. 'Youknow your rights, Prince,' said the French King, 'and you wouldlike to be a King. Is it not so?' 'Truly,' said Prince Arthur, 'Ishould greatly like to be a King!' 'Then,' said Philip, 'you shallhave two hundred gentlemen who are Knights of mine, and with themyou shall go to win back the provinces belonging to you, of whichyour uncle, the usurping King of England, has taken possession. Imyself, meanwhile, will head a force against him in Normandy.'Poor Arthur was so flattered and so grateful that he signed atreaty with the crafty French King, agreeing to consider him hissuperior Lord, and that the French King should keep for himselfwhatever he could take from King John.

　　Now, King John was so bad in all ways, and King Philip was soperfidious, that Arthur, between the two, might as well have been alamb between a fox and a wolf. But, being so young, he was ardentand flushed with hope; and, when the people of Brittany (which washis inheritance) sent him five hundred more knights and fivethousand foot soldiers, he believed his fortune was made. Thepeople of Brittany had been fond of him from his birth, and hadrequested that he might be called Arthur, in remembrance of thatdimly-famous English Arthur, of whom I told you early in this book,whom they believed to have been the brave friend and companion ofan old King of their own. They had tales among them about aprophet called Merlin (of the same old time), who had foretold thattheir own King should be restored to them after hundreds of years;and they believed that the prophecy would be fulfilled in Arthur;that the time would come when he would rule them with a crown ofBrittany upon his head; and when neither King of France nor King ofEngland would have any power over them. When Arthur found himselfriding in a glittering suit of armour on a richly caparisonedhorse, at the head of his train of knights and soldiers, he beganto believe this too, and to consider old Merlin a very superiorprophet.

　　He did not know - how could he, being so innocent andinexperienced? - that his little army was a mere nothing againstthe power of the King of England. The French King knew it; but thepoor boy's fate was little to him, so that the King of England wasworried and distressed. Therefore, King Philip went his way intoNormandy and Prince Arthur went his way towards Mirebeau, a Frenchtown near Poictiers, both very well pleased.

　　Prince Arthur went to attack the town of Mirebeau, because hisgrandmother Eleanor, who has so often made her appearance in thishistory (and who had always been his mother's enemy), was livingthere, and because his Knights said, 'Prince, if you can take herprisoner, you will be able to bring the King your uncle to terms!'But she was not to be easily taken. She was old enough by thistime - eighty - but she was as full of stratagem as she was full ofyears and wickedness. Receiving intelligence of young Arthur'sapproach, she shut herself up in a high tower, and encouraged hersoldiers to defend it like men. Prince Arthur with his little armybesieged the high tower. King John, hearing how matters stood,came up to the rescue, with his army. So here was a strangefamily-party! The boy-Prince besieging his grandmother, and hisuncle besieging him!

　　This position of affairs did not last long. One summer night KingJohn, by treachery, got his men into the town, surprised PrinceArthur's force, took two hundred of his knights, and seized thePrince himself in his bed. The Knights were put in heavy irons,and driven away in open carts drawn by bullocks, to variousdungeons where they were most inhumanly treated, and where some ofthem were starved to death. Prince Arthur was sent to the castleof Falaise.

　　One day, while he was in prison at that castle, mournfully thinkingit strange that one so young should be in so much trouble, andlooking out of the small window in the deep dark wall, at thesummer sky and the birds, the door was softly opened, and he sawhis uncle the King standing in the shadow of the archway, lookingvery grim.

　　'Arthur,' said the King, with his wicked eyes more on the stonefloor than on his nephew, 'will you not trust to the gentleness,the friendship, and the truthfulness of your loving uncle?'

　　'I will tell my loving uncle that,' replied the boy, 'when he doesme right. Let him restore to me my kingdom of England, and thencome to me and ask the question.'

　　The King looked at him and went out. 'Keep that boy closeprisoner,' said he to the warden of the castle.

　　Then, the King took secret counsel with the worst of his nobles howthe Prince was to be got rid of. Some said, 'Put out his eyes andkeep him in prison, as Robort of Normandy was kept.' Others said,'Have him stabbed.' Others, 'Have him hanged.' Others, 'Have himpoisoned.'

　　King John, feeling that in any case, whatever was done afterwards,it would be a satisfaction to his mind to have those handsome eyesburnt out that had looked at him so proudly while his own royaleyes were blinking at the stone floor, sent certain ruffians toFalaise to blind the boy with red-hot irons. But Arthur sopathetically entreated them, and shed such piteous tears, and soappealed to Hubert de Bourg (or Burgh), the warden of the castle,who had a love for him, and was an honourable, tender man, thatHubert could not bear it. To his eternal honour he prevented thetorture from being performed, and, at his own risk, sent thesavages away.

　　The chafed and disappointed King bethought himself of the stabbingsuggestion next, and, with his shuffling manner and his cruel face,proposed it to one William de Bray. 'I am a gentleman and not anexecutioner,' said William de Bray, and left the presence withdisdain.

　　But it was not difficult for a King to hire a murderer in thosedays. King John found one for his money, and sent him down to thecastle of Falaise. 'On what errand dost thou come?' said Hubert tothis fellow. 'To despatch young Arthur,' he returned. 'Go back tohim who sent thee,' answered Hubert, 'and say that I will do it!'

　　King John very well knowing that Hubert would never do it, but thathe courageously sent this reply to save the Prince or gain time,despatched messengers to convey the young prisoner to the castle ofRouen.

　　Arthur was soon forced from the good Hubert - of whom he had neverstood in greater need than then - carried away by night, and lodgedin his new prison: where, through his grated window, he could hearthe deep waters of the river Seine, rippling against the stone wallbelow.

　　One dark night, as he lay sleeping, dreaming perhaps of rescue bythose unfortunate gentlemen who were obscurely suffering and dyingin his cause, he was roused, and bidden by his jailer to come downthe staircase to the foot of the tower. He hurriedly dressedhimself and obeyed. When they came to the bottom of the windingstairs, and the night air from the river blew upon their faces, thejailer trod upon his torch and put it out. Then, Arthur, in thedarkness, was hurriedly drawn into a solitary boat. And in thatboat, he found his uncle and one other man.

　　He knelt to them, and prayed them not to murder him. Deaf to hisentreaties, they stabbed him and sunk his body in the river withheavy stones. When the spring-morning broke, the tower-door wasclosed, the boat was gone, the river sparkled on its way, and nevermore was any trace of the poor boy beheld by mortal eyes.

　　The news of this atrocious murder being spread in England, awakeneda hatred of the King (already odious for his many vices, and forhis having stolen away and married a noble lady while his own wifewas living) that never slept again through his whole reign. InBrittany, the indignation was intense. Arthur's own sister Eleanorwas in the power of John and shut up in a convent at Bristol, buthis half-sister Alice was in Brittany. The people chose her, andthe murdered prince's father-in-law, the last husband of Constance,to represent them; and carried their fiery complaints to KingPhilip. King Philip summoned King John (as the holder of territoryin France) to come before him and defend himself. King Johnrefusing to appear, King Philip declared him false, perjured, andguilty; and again made war. In a little time, by conquering thegreater part of his French territory, King Philip deprived him ofone-third of his dominions. And, through all the fighting thattook place, King John was always found, either to be eating anddrinking, like a gluttonous fool, when the danger was at adistance, or to be running away, like a beaten cur, when it wasnear.

　　You might suppose that when he was losing his dominions at thisrate, and when his own nobles cared so little for him or his causethat they plainly refused to follow his banner out of England, hehad enemies enough. But he made another enemy of the Pope, whichhe did in this way.

　　The Archbishop of Canterbury dying, and the junior monks of thatplace wishing to get the start of the senior monks in theappointment of his successor, met together at midnight, secretlyelected a certain Reginald, and sent him off to Rome to get thePope's approval. The senior monks and the King soon finding thisout, and being very angry about it, the junior monks gave way, andall the monks together elected the Bishop of Norwich, who was theKing's favourite. The Pope, hearing the whole story, declared thatneither election would do for him, and that He elected StephenLangton. The monks submitting to the Pope, the King turned themall out bodily, and banished them as traitors. The Pope sent threebishops to the King, to threaten him with an Interdict. The Kingtold the bishops that if any Interdict were laid upon his kingdom,he would tear out the eyes and cut off the noses of all the monkshe could lay hold of, and send them over to Rome in thatundecorated state as a present for their master. The bishops,nevertheless, soon published the Interdict, and fled.

　　After it had lasted a year, the Pope proceeded to his next step;which was Excommunication. King John was declared excommunicated,with all the usual ceremonies. The King was so incensed at this,and was made so desperate by the disaffection of his Barons and thehatred of his people, that it is said he even privately sentambassadors to the Turks in Spain, offering to renounce hisreligion and hold his kingdom of them if they would help him. Itis related that the ambassadors were admitted to the presence ofthe Turkish Emir through long lines of Moorish guards, and thatthey found the Emir with his eyes seriously fixed on the pages of alarge book, from which he never once looked up. That they gave hima letter from the King containing his proposals, and were gravelydismissed. That presently the Emir sent for one of them, andconjured him, by his faith in his religion, to say what kind of manthe King of England truly was? That the ambassador, thus pressed,replied that the King of England was a false tyrant, against whomhis own subjects would soon rise. And that this was quite enoughfor the Emir.

　　Money being, in his position, the next best thing to men, King Johnspared no means of getting it. He set on foot another oppressingand torturing of the unhappy Jews (which was quite in his way), andinvented a new punishment for one wealthy Jew of Bristol. Untilsuch time as that Jew should produce a certain large sum of money,the King sentenced him to be imprisoned, and, every day, to haveone tooth violently wrenched out of his head - beginning with thedouble teeth. For seven days, the oppressed man bore the dailypain and lost the daily tooth; but, on the eighth, he paid themoney. With the treasure raised in such ways, the King made anexpedition into Ireland, where some English nobles had revolted.It was one of the very few places from which he did not run away;because no resistance was shown. He made another expedition intoWales - whence he did run away in the end: but not before he hadgot from the Welsh people, as hostages, twenty-seven young men ofthe best families; every one of whom he caused to be slain in thefollowing year.

　　To Interdict and Excommunication, the Pope now added his lastsentence; Deposition. He proclaimed John no longer King, absolvedall his subjects from their allegiance, and sent Stephen Langtonand others to the King of France to tell him that, if he wouldinvade England, he should be forgiven all his sins - at least,should be forgiven them by the Pope, if that would do.

　　As there was nothing that King Philip desired more than to invadeEngland, he collected a great army at Rouen, and a fleet ofseventeen hundred ships to bring them over. But the Englishpeople, however bitterly they hated the King, were not a people tosuffer invasion quietly. They flocked to Dover, where the Englishstandard was, in such great numbers to enrol themselves asdefenders of their native land, that there were not provisions forthem, and the King could only select and retain sixty thousand.But, at this crisis, the Pope, who had his own reasons forobjecting to either King John or King Philip being too powerful,interfered. He entrusted a legate, whose name was Pandolf, withthe easy task of frightening King John. He sent him to the EnglishCamp, from France, to terrify him with exaggerations of KingPhilip's power, and his own weakness in the discontent of theEnglish Barons and people. Pandolf discharged his commission sowell, that King John, in a wretched panic, consented to acknowledgeStephen Langton; to resign his kingdom 'to God, Saint Peter, andSaint Paul' - which meant the Pope; and to hold it, everafterwards, by the Pope's leave, on payment of an annual sum ofmoney. To this shameful contract he publicly bound himself in thechurch of the Knights Templars at Dover: where he laid at thelegate's feet a part of the tribute, which the legate haughtilytrampled upon. But they do say, that this was merely a genteelflourish, and that he was afterwards seen to pick it up and pocketit.

　　There was an unfortunate prophet, the name of Peter, who hadgreatly increased King John's terrors by predicting that he wouldbe unknighted (which the King supposed to signify that he woulddie) before the Feast of the Ascension should be past. That wasthe day after this humiliation. When the next morning came, andthe King, who had been trembling all night, found himself alive andsafe, he ordered the prophet - and his son too - to be draggedthrough the streets at the tails of horses, and then hanged, forhaving frightened him.

　　As King John had now submitted, the Pope, to King Philip's greatastonishment, took him under his protection, and informed KingPhilip that he found he could not give him leave to invade England.The angry Philip resolved to do it without his leave but he gainednothing and lost much; for, the English, commanded by the Earl ofSalisbury, went over, in five hundred ships, to the French coast,before the French fleet had sailed away from it, and utterlydefeated the whole.

　　The Pope then took off his three sentences, one after another, andempowered Stephen Langton publicly to receive King John into thefavour of the Church again, and to ask him to dinner. The King,who hated Langton with all his might and main - and with reasontoo, for he was a great and a good man, with whom such a King couldhave no sympathy - pretended to cry and to be very grateful. Therewas a little difficulty about settling how much the King should payas a recompense to the clergy for the losses he had caused them;but, the end of it was, that the superior clergy got a good deal,and the inferior clergy got little or nothing - which has alsohappened since King John's time, I believe.

　　When all these matters were arranged, the King in his triumphbecame more fierce, and false, and insolent to all around him thanhe had ever been. An alliance of sovereigns against King Philip,gave him an opportunity of landing an army in France; with which heeven took a town! But, on the French King's gaining a greatvictory, he ran away, of course, and made a truce for five years.

　　And now the time approached when he was to be still furtherhumbled, and made to feel, if he could feel anything, what awretched creature he was. Of all men in the world, Stephen Langtonseemed raised up by Heaven to oppose and subdue him. When heruthlessly burnt and destroyed the property of his own subjects,because their Lords, the Barons, would not serve him abroad,Stephen Langton fearlessly reproved and threatened him. When heswore to restore the laws of King Edward, or the laws of King Henrythe First, Stephen Langton knew his falsehood, and pursued himthrough all his evasions. When the Barons met at the abbey ofSaint Edmund's-Bury, to consider their wrongs and the King'soppressions, Stephen Langton roused them by his fervid words todemand a solemn charter of rights and liberties from their perjuredmaster, and to swear, one by one, on the High Altar, that theywould have it, or would wage war against him to the death. Whenthe King hid himself in London from the Barons, and was at lastobliged to receive them, they told him roundly they would notbelieve him unless Stephen Langton became a surety that he wouldkeep his word. When he took the Cross to invest himself with someinterest, and belong to something that was received with favour,Stephen Langton was still immovable. When he appealed to the Pope,and the Pope wrote to Stephen Langton in behalf of his newfavourite, Stephen Langton was deaf, even to the Pope himself, andsaw before him nothing but the welfare of England and the crimes ofthe English King.

　　At Easter-time, the Barons assembled at Stamford, in Lincolnshire,in proud array, and, marching near to Oxford where the King was,delivered into the hands of Stephen Langton and two others, a listof grievances. 'And these,' they said, 'he must redress, or wewill do it for ourselves!' When Stephen Langton told the King asmuch, and read the list to him, he went half mad with rage. Butthat did him no more good than his afterwards trying to pacify theBarons with lies. They called themselves and their followers, 'Thearmy of God and the Holy Church.' Marching through the country,with the people thronging to them everywhere (except atNorthampton, where they failed in an attack upon the castle), theyat last triumphantly set up their banner in London itself, whitherthe whole land, tired of the tyrant, seemed to flock to join them.Seven knights alone, of all the knights in England, remained withthe King; who, reduced to this strait, at last sent the Earl ofPembroke to the Barons to say that he approved of everything, andwould meet them to sign their charter when they would. 'Then,'said the Barons, 'let the day be the fifteenth of June, and theplace, Runny-Mead.'

　　On Monday, the fifteenth of June, one thousand two hundred andfourteen, the King came from Windsor Castle, and the Barons camefrom the town of Staines, and they met on Runny-Mead, which isstill a pleasant meadow by the Thames, where rushes grow in theclear water of the winding river, and its banks are green withgrass and trees. On the side of the Barons, came the General oftheir army, Robert Fitz-Walter, and a great concourse of thenobility of England. With the King, came, in all, some four-and-twenty persons of any note, most of whom despised him, and weremerely his advisers in form. On that great day, and in that greatcompany, the King signed Magna Charta - the great charter ofEngland - by which he pledged himself to maintain the Church in itsrights; to relieve the Barons of oppressive obligations as vassalsof the Crown - of which the Barons, in their turn, pledgedthemselves to relieve their vassals, the people; to respect theliberties of London and all other cities and boroughs; to protectforeign merchants who came to England; to imprison no man without afair trial; and to sell, delay, or deny justice to none. As theBarons knew his falsehood well, they further required, as theirsecurities, that he should send out of his kingdom all his foreigntroops; that for two months they should hold possession of the cityof London, and Stephen Langton of the Tower; and that five-and-twenty of their body, chosen by themselves, should be a lawfulcommittee to watch the keeping of the charter, and to make war uponhim if he broke it.

　　All this he was obliged to yield. He signed the charter with asmile, and, if he could have looked agreeable, would have done so,as he departed from the splendid assembly. When he got home toWindsor Castle, he was quite a madman in his helpless fury. And hebroke the charter immediately afterwards.

　　He sent abroad for foreign soldiers, and sent to the Pope for help,and plotted to take London by surprise, while the Barons should beholding a great tournament at Stamford, which they had agreed tohold there as a celebration of the charter. The Barons, however,found him out and put it off. Then, when the Barons desired to seehim and tax him with his treachery, he made numbers of appointmentswith them, and kept none, and shifted from place to place, and wasconstantly sneaking and skulking about. At last he appeared atDover, to join his foreign soldiers, of whom numbers came into hispay; and with them he besieged and took Rochester Castle, which wasoccupied by knights and soldiers of the Barons. He would havehanged them every one; but the leader of the foreign soldiers,fearful of what the English people might afterwards do to him,interfered to save the knights; therefore the King was fain tosatisfy his vengeance with the death of all the common men. Then,he sent the Earl of Salisbury, with one portion of his army, toravage the eastern part of his own dominions, while he carried fireand slaughter into the northern part; torturing, plundering,killing, and inflicting every possible cruelty upon the people;and, every morning, setting a worthy example to his men by settingfire, with his own monster-hands, to the house where he had sleptlast night. Nor was this all; for the Pope, coming to the aid ofhis precious friend, laid the kingdom under an Interdict again,because the people took part with the Barons. It did not muchmatter, for the people had grown so used to it now, that they hadbegun to think nothing about it. It occurred to them - perhaps toStephen Langton too - that they could keep their churches open, andring their bells, without the Pope's permission as well as with it.So, they tried the experiment - and found that it succeededperfectly.

　　It being now impossible to bear the country, as a wilderness ofcruelty, or longer to hold any terms with such a forsworn outlaw ofa King, the Barons sent to Louis, son of the French monarch, tooffer him the English crown. Caring as little for the Pope'sexcommunication of him if he accepted the offer, as it is possiblehis father may have cared for the Pope's forgiveness of his sins,he landed at Sandwich (King John immediately running away fromDover, where he happened to be), and went on to London. TheScottish King, with whom many of the Northern English Lords hadtaken refuge; numbers of the foreign soldiers, numbers of theBarons, and numbers of the people went over to him every day; -King John, the while, continually running away in all directions.

　　The career of Louis was checked however, by the suspicions of theBarons, founded on the dying declaration of a French Lord, thatwhen the kingdom was conquered he was sworn to banish them astraitors, and to give their estates to some of his own Nobles.Rather than suffer this, some of the Barons hesitated: others evenwent over to King John.

　　It seemed to be the turning-point of King John's fortunes, for, inhis savage and murderous course, he had now taken some towns andmet with some successes. But, happily for England and humanity,his death was near. Crossing a dangerous quicksand, called theWash, not very far from Wisbeach, the tide came up and nearlydrowned his army. He and his soldiers escaped; but, looking backfrom the shore when he was safe, he saw the roaring water sweepdown in a torrent, overturn the waggons, horses, and men, thatcarried his treasure, and engulf them in a raging whirlpool fromwhich nothing could be delivered.

　　Cursing, and swearing, and gnawing his fingers, he went on toSwinestead Abbey, where the monks set before him quantities ofpears, and peaches, and new cider - some say poison too, but thereis very little reason to suppose so - of which he ate and drank inan immoderate and beastly way. All night he lay ill of a burningfever, and haunted with horrible fears. Next day, they put him ina horse-litter, and carried him to Sleaford Castle, where he passedanother night of pain and horror. Next day, they carried him, withgreater difficulty than on the day before, to the castle of Newarkupon Trent; and there, on the eighteenth of October, in the forty-ninth year of his age, and the seventeenth of his vile reign, wasan end of this miserable brute.