CHAPTER XII.

MAGNA CHARTA INTRODUCED: SLIGHT DIFFICULTIES ENCOUNTERED IN OVERCOMING
AN UNPOPULAR AND UNREASONABLE PREJUDICE.

Philip called the miserable monarch to account for the death of Arthur,
and, as a result, John lost his French possessions. Hence the weak and
wicked son of Henry Plantagenet, since called Lackland, ceased to be a
tax-payer in France, and proved to a curious world that a court fool in
his household was superfluous.

John now became mixed up in a fracas with the Roman pontiff, who would
have been justified in giving him a Roman punch. Why he did not, no
Roman knows.

On the death of the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1205, Stephen Langton
was elected to the place, with a good salary and use of the rectory.
John refused to confirm the appointment, whereat Innocent III., the
pontiff, closed the churches and declared a general lock-out. People
were denied Christian burial in 1208, and John was excommunicated in
1209.

Philip united with the Pope, and together they raised the temperature
for John so that he yielded to the Roman pontiff, and in 1213 agreed to
pay him a comfortable tribute. The French king attempted to conquer
England, but was defeated in a great naval battle in the harbor of
Damme. Philip afterwards admitted that the English were not conquered
by a Damme site; but the Pope absolved him for two dollars.

[Illustration: KING JOHN SIGNS THE MAGNA CHARTA.]

It was now decided by the royal subjects that John should be still
further restrained, as he had disgraced his nation and soiled his
ermine. So the barons raised an army, took London, and at Runnymede,
June 15, 1215, compelled John to sign the famous Magna Charta, giving
his subjects many additional rights to the use of the climate, and so
forth, which they had not known before.

Among other things the right of trial by his peers was granted to the
freeman; and so, out of the mental and moral chaos and general
strabismus of royal justice, everlasting truth and human rights arose.

Scarcely was the ink dry on Magna Charta, and hardly had the king
returned his tongue to its place after signing the instrument, when he
began to organize an army of foreign soldiers, with which he laid waste
with fire and sword the better part of "Merrie Englande."

But the barons called on Philip, the general salaried Peacemaker
Plenipotentiary, who sent his son Louis with an army to overtake John
and punish him severely. The king was over