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BRITISH HISTORY THE STORY of
Four great themes emerge as the Brits fight for freedom.
THE KNIGHTS Never a dull moment on the road to Runnymede
THE SUPRA-REGIONS OF THE EU Only bureaucrats, and people who hated Britain could come up with this. The EU would tear Britain apart and put some of our people in a supra-region called the North Sea; some in the supra-region of TransManche; some in the Atlantic region; some in Ireland/Wales; and some in the North Atlantic supra-region. See YOUR OWN CHOICE if you care.
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The knight reaches out for his helmet, held by the small page behind him. When John repudiated Magna Carta, the knights defended it. MS. Roy. 2. A. xxii , 13th century THE KNIGHTS Never a dull moment defending Magna Carta
The king had confirmed Magna Carta, peace had been established, and most of the rebel knights had renewed their homages, but a strain of anxiety trickled through the celebrations. The promises of Magna Carta were great. The knights were elated that hostages would be returned to their families; foreign mercenaries would be expelled; they had a voice in deciding how high their taxes would be; they would have inalienable rights and protections against injustice; their property would be protected; and sheriffs and justices would be held to high standards. The Welsh had their lands and liberties restored.
English art of the eleventh century (MS. Cotton Julius A. vi) Farmers, labourers and merchants were not forgotten, either. Magna Carta confirmed their right under the law to their land and horses and crops. The thousands of people who depended on the common lands of forest and river for their food, fuel, and building materials and had seen their common land seized by the king and their access denied were to have these "evil" developments investigated by twelve sworn knights chosen by the honest men of the same county who would investigate and abolish these evils within forty days. In Magna Carta they had established the fundamental rules and principles they would live by, that is to say, their Constitution. This gave the people gathered at Runnymede the brief warmth of homecoming, the fleeting feeling they had heard good news. But those who sensed John's cold fury, or looked at William Marshal's grim face, guessed that John wanted war. They must have wondered, too, if William Marshal would ride with the king. Stephen Langton wanted peace, but he doubted John's word. The king was, as Psalm 52 put it, an evil ruler whose tongue was full of lies. And as the king pondered his next move, he saw that Stephen Langton had something which was indispensable to his campaign to recover power. John bent his will to regain that thing from Langton. The knights dispersed to their homes. But the twenty-five knight-barons who had been appointed to make sure the king lived up to his word suspected the worst of the king and refused to give John written pledges of their fealty, or to evacuate London by the date agreed. They were right to fear him. John had delayed the removal of foreign troops from England, as demanded by Magna Carta. He was gathering rather than dismissing his mercenaries, and he had asked the Pope to annul Magna Carta. The knights reinforce the shires The knights decided that to surrender key strongholds would be folly. Instead they "appointed several of their number to control those shires where their influence was strongest. . .Mandeville in Essex, FitzWalter in Northamptonshire, Quincy in Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire, d'Aubigny in Lincolnshire, Lacy in Nottinghamshire and Yorkshire, and Ros in Northumberland" (DNB). Meanwhile John was moving heaven and earth to recover Rochester Castle from Stephen Langton. It may seem odd that an Archbishop of Canterbury would hold a military castle, but it was on such details, and men's willingness to stake their lives on principle, that Magna Carta hinged. The siege of Rochester Castle
Rochester Castle, Kent Henry I had given Rochester Castle to the custody of the Archbishops of Canterbury early in the 12th century. Confident that his archbishop would not wage war against him, Henry had been content to see him pay for the castle's upkeep. John had interfered with this arrangement when he refused to allow Langton to return to England. John had the highly unsuccessful habit of making everything too complicated, for himself and everybody else. Where another man would have shaken hands on a simple negotiation, John by his very nature seemed impelled into tortuous agreements that he further complicated by failing to keep. This, according to entries in the chancery rolls, was a king who had devised an elaborate system of countersigns enabling him to issue orders which he did not want obeyed. He reminds us of modern bureaucrats obsessed with power and control. John's arrangements for the return of Rochester Castle to Langton were so convoluted they would bore you to tears. Suffice it to say that Reginald of Cornhill, the constable in charge of Rochester castle, was now holding it for Langton, not John. The king tried to replace Cornhill with his man, and to take over the castle. For the next three months, knowing its strategic importance, Stephen Langton refused to surrender Rochester Castle to John. Then, as we have written, in late August the Pope's letter arrived. It condemned Magna Carta and demanded that Langton excommunicate the knight-barons. Knowing this meant their death and the end of Magna Carta, Langton refused to excommunicate them. The Pope suspended Langton as Archbishop. (Keep in mind it took a messenger almost 30 days to travel from Rome to Canterbury.) The Pope ordered Langton to appear before him in Rome. Langton prepared to go, but his resistance had bought the barons the time they needed. John bitterly called him a traitor. Early in October, 1215, William d' Aubigné of Belvoir became commander of Rochester Castle. He was an active man in his sixties. He had only three days to gather supplies and stock the castle before John attacked across the River Medway. The defenders beat back John's troops, but were forced to retreat inside the castle when John's forces entered the town and surprised them. For the next two months the rebel knights were bombarded by five huge stone-throwing engines. John had the castle pounded relentlessly by day and night, and set his men to undermine the foundations of the keep. The knight-barons in London tried to relieve the Rochester garrison, but hearing that John had sent "700 horse" to intercept them, turned back at Dartford. In November John's mines brought the tower crashing down. At the end of November the starving defenders surrendered, with Aubigné and Cornhill just escaping hanging. They were taken to Corfe Castle, and incarcerated. They were not expected to survive their prison. John split his army, sending one half of it to harry FitzWalter, Huntingdon and Mandeville in East Anglia, and the other half to Nottingham. William Marshal's game The redoubtable William Marshal had not joined the king. He was at Pembroke Castle. It appeared that he was holding the west for John, so it is strange that Wales rose in rebellion against the king on his watch. Marshal did not help or hinder John. He was simply devastatingly absent. His absence from the war must have been a relief to the knight-barons, and to his son. The French connection It was becoming clear that the king's power was greater than the rebel knights had foreseen. In a move that reflects their desperation they sent urgently to the heir to the French throne, Prince Louis, and asked for help. He was willing to give it if he could have the English throne. Anyone seemed better than John, and the knights said, yes. It is not clear whether they thought Louis would agree to Magna Carta. Louis said he would help, but it was not until that December that an advance guard of French troops arrived in London. At the same time, John was taking his army north, harrying as he went. He invaded Scotland, captured and burned Berwick, and raided the Scottish lowlands. In March 1216 he marched into rebel-held East Anglia, and captured Colchester. But despite their increasingly dangerous straits, the rebel knights refused to submit. Marshal continued to watch from afar. In April 1216 John mustered land and naval forces in Kent to meet the French, but when Louis landed, he fled westwards without a fight. He stayed in the west through the summer while Louis toured London, captured Winchester, and laid siege to Dover, Windsor, and Lincoln castles. In September, as Louis's French troops caused "patriotic resentments" (DNB), John moved northeast to reinforce his garrison at Lincoln. The rebels had retaken Rochester, and his key castle of Dover was on the verge of falling to the French. Death of the king At Lynn, on the night of 9 and 10 October 1216, John suffered an attack of dysentery. Chroniclers say it was brought on by surfeit of peaches, but this seems a bit spiteful. Dysentery, which had killed John's brother Henry, is an extremely unpleasant bacterial infection. On 10 October John made a grant to Margaret, daughter of William de Briouze, for the sake of the souls of her parents and brother, and one presumes, for the sake of his soul as well. His health was deteriorating, and he lost part of his baggage train with his crown jewels while crossing the Wash. He struggled on as far as Newark, where he died during the night of 18–19 October 1216. He had tried to control everything and everyone, and had lost his kingdom and his life. The guardian Everything had now changed. Marshal moved swiftly to guard John's nine-year-old son Henry and to protect Magna Carta. He wanted a sovereign and independent England ruled by an English king, so his most pressing business was sending the French home as quickly and diplomatically as possible. First he had John's son crowned Henry III. After the coronation, on 28 October 1216, loyal knights carried the boy to dinner in their arms. On 12 November, Marshal had Magna Carta reissued. He was a pragmatic man and a man of of justice and sense who saw the pragmatism, justice and sense in Magna Carta. He also respected the ideas and ideals of the knights and bishops of England, whom he knew very well. Sending the French home required more than diplomacy. French troops and some English knights were resisting the new king. In May 1217 Marshal rode to Lincoln Castle. He took the field in person, first exhorting his small troop before leading it against the French, commanded by his first cousin, the count of Perche:
Meanwhile William d' Aubigné and Cornhill had survived Corfe Castle due to the loyalty of their men and Aubigné's wife Agatha. They joined Marshal and knights from all over England in expelling the French, who had proved extremely reluctant to leave, and were attempting a second invasion. In spring 1217, the French were decisively defeated in a naval engagement, and Marshal persuaded the French prince to shake the mud of England from his heels by giving him 10,000 marks. In years and decades to come Marshal offered amnesty to all who were still rebels. He served as regent for the young Henry III until, feeling himself unwell at Westminster, he had himself rowed home to a Thames-side manor. On 14 May 1219, his head supported by his son William, he died. Stephen Langton was reinstated as Archbishop, and returned to England. In January 1223 Langton persuaded the king to swear to abide by Magna Carta, and two years later was behind its reissue in what was to be its definitive form. The security clause had been omitted in 1216, but the interest and involvement of the knight-barons would grow, and they would confront Henry III decades later in a second revolutionary development, Parliament.
The story of Magna Carta confirms that it is not from Parliament that British freedoms flow. British freedoms are the birthright of the British people, and can never be taken away. They are articulated in Common Law, Magna Carta, and the people's Constitutional Covenants with the Monarch. They have given the British people happiness and prosperity. They will survive as long as the British people are willing to defend them.
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