ed on
Runnymede. Here the Charta was presented, and probably, though not
certainly, signed and sealed. The local tradition ascribes the site of
the actual signature to "Magna Charta" island--an eyot just up-stream
from the field, now called Runnymede, but neither in tradition nor in
recorded history can this detail be fixed with any exactitude. The
Charta is given as from Runnymede upon the 15th June, and for the
purpose of these pages what we have to note is that these two months
of marching and fighting had ended upon the strategic point of
Staines, and had clearly shown its relation to Windsor and to London.

In the short campaign that followed, during which John so very nearly
recovered his power, the capital importance of Windsor reappears.
Louis of France, to whom the Barons were willing to hand over what was
left of order in England, had occupied all the south and west,
including even Worcester, and, of course, London. In this occupation
the exception of Dover, which the French were actively besieging, must
be regarded as an isolated point, but _Windsor_, which John's men held
against the allies, threw an angle of defence right down into the
midst of the territory lost to the Crown. Windsor was, of course,
besieged; but John's garrison, holding out as it did, saved the
position. The King was at Wallingford at one moment during the siege;
his proximity tempted the enemy to raise the siege, to leave Windsor
in the hands of the royal garrison, and to advance against him, or
rather to cut him off in his advance eastward. They marched with the
utmost rapidity to Cambridge, but John was ahead of them: and before
they could return to the capture of Windsor he was rapidly confirming
his power in the north and the east.

It must not be forgotten in all this description that Windsor was
helped in its development as a fortress by the presence to the south
of the hill of a great space of waste lands.

These waste lands of Western Europe, which it was impossible or
unprofitable to cultivate, were, by a sound political tradition,
vested in the common authority, which was the Crown.

Indeed they still remain so vested in most European countries. The
Cantons of Switzerland, the Communes and the National Governments of
France, Italy, and Spain remain in possession of the waste. It is only
with us that wealthy private owners have been permitted to rob the
Commonwealth of so obvious an inheritance, a piece of theft which they