John having thus triumphed over his bitter enemy, and secured the alliance of the Holy See, continued the same cruel and tyrannical measures which had hitherto rendered him odious to his subjects. His long misgovernment, and his reckless indulgence in excesses of every vicious habit, had exhausted the patience of all classes both in Church and State. A general desire was expressed for the privileges and the control of settled law.
The story of Magna Charta is so truly English, so well known, and so intimately connected with church, as well as civil history, that we must give it a brief notice in our "Short Papers." Besides, it is said by historians, that no event of equal importance occurred in any other country of Europe during the thirteenth century; and that the results of no single incident have ever been so enduring or so widely spread as those of the meeting of the barons at Runnymede and the summoning of the burgesses to Parliament. While monarchy was making such rapid strides in France, a counter-balancing power was formed in England by the combination of the nobility and the rise of the House of Commons.
Archbishop Langton, whom Innocent had raised to the primacy, in order by his means to maintain all the exorbitant pretensions of Rome over England, was himself an Englishman, and on all occasions showed a sincere regard for the interests of the kingdom to the utter disappointment of the pope. Having found amidst the rubbish of an obscure monastery a copy of the charter of Henry I., he conferred privately with the barons, and exhorted them to have it renewed. Those of the barons who had felt deeply the degradation which John had inflicted on the whole kingdom by his abject submission to the pope, received the document with loud acclamations, and took a solemn oath to conquer or to die in the defense of their liberties. After several conferences and delays forty-five barons, armed in mail, well mounted on their war-steeds, and surrounded with their knights, servants, and soldiers, presented a petition to the King, praying him to renew and ratify the charter. John at first resented their presumption in a furious passion, and swore "that he would never grant them liberties which would make himself a slave." But the barons were firm and united, and the court of John rapidly diminished. He eventually submitted and agreed to a friendly conference. The barons named Runnymede as a proper place for meeting. It was a meadow situated between Staines and Windsor; the ground is still held in veneration as the spot where the standard of English freedom was first unfurled. On the 15th day of June, 1215, both parties met there; the King signed the charter—the great charter of the liberties of England.