had paid no regard, in
conferring dignities, to personal merit, to rank, to the inclination of
the electors, or to the customs of the country. The English church was
universally disgusted; and Langton himself, though he owed his elevation
to an encroachment of the Romish see, was no sooner established in his
high office, than he became jealous of the privileges annexed to it, and
formed attachments with the country subjected to his jurisdiction. These
causes, though they opened slowly the eyes of men, failed not to produce
their effect: they set bounds to the usurpations of the papacy; the tide
first stopped, and then turned against the sovereign pontiff; and it is
otherwise inconceivable, how that age, so prone to superstition, and so
sunk in ignorance, or rather so devoted to a spurious erudition, could
have escaped falling into an absolute and total slavery under the court
of Rome.

About the time that the pope's letters arrived in England, The
malevolent barons, on the approach of the festival of Easter, when they
were to expect the king's answer to their petition, met by agreement at
Stamford; and they assembled a force, consisting of above two thousand
knights, besides then retainers and inferior persons without number.
Elated with their power, they advanced in a body to Brackley, within
fifteen miles of Oxford, the place where the court then resided; and
they there received a message from the king, by the archbishop of
Canterbury and the earl of Pembroke, desiring to know what those
liberties were which they so zealously challenged from their sovereign.
They delivered to these messengers a schedule, containing the chief
articles of their demands; which was no sooner shown to the king, than
he burst into a furious passion, and asked why the barons did not also
demand of him his kingdom; swearing that he would never grant them such
liberties as must reduce himself to slavery.[*]

No sooner were the confederated nobles informed of John's reply, than
they chose Robert Fitz-Walter their general, whom they called "the
mareschal of the army of God and of holy church;" and they proceeded
without further ceremony to levy war upon the king. They besieged the
castle of Northampton during fifteen days, though without success:[**]
the gates of Bedford castle were willingly opened to them by William
Beauchamp, its owner: they advanced to Ware in their way to London,
where they held a correspondence with the principal citizen