ed itself
all the more strongly, in proportion to its previous depression; a
general revolt would have accompanied his attack, the English
government according to all appearance would have been lost.

King John knew this well: to avoid immediate ruin he seized on a means
of escape which was completely unexpected, but quite decisive--he gave
over his kingdom in vassalage to the Pope.

What William I had so expressly rejected was now accepted in a moment
of extreme pressure, from which such a step was the only means of
escape. The moment the Pope was recognised as feudal lord of England,
not only must his hostility cease, but he would be bound to take the
realm under his protection. He now forbade the King of France, whom he
had before urged on to its conquest, to carry out the invasion, which
was already prepared.

It appears as if the barons had originally agreed with the King's
proceeding, although they did not entirely approve its form. They
maintained that they had risen up for the Church's rights,[30] and saw
in the Pope a natural ally. They thought to gain their own purpose all
the more surely now that Stephen Langton received the see of
Canterbury, a man who, while he represented the Papal authority, at the
same time zealously made their interests his own. At the very moment
when the archbishop absolved the King from the excommunication, he made
him swear that he would restore the good laws, especially those of King
Edward, and would do all according to the legal decisions of his
courts. It may be regarded as the first time that a Norman-Plantagenet
king's administration was acted on by an obligatory engagement, when
King John, on the point of taking the field against some barons whom he
regarded as rebels, was hindered by the archbishop who reminded him
that he would thus be breaking his last oath, which bound him to take
judicial proceedings. The tradition that a forgotten charter of Henry I
was produced by the archbishop (who was certainly, as his writings
show, a scholar of research), and recognised as a legal document which
gave them a firm footing, may admit of some doubt; there is no doubt
that it was Stephen Langton who gathered around him the great nobles
and bound them by a mutual engagement, to defend, even at the risk of
life, the old liberties and rights which they derived from Anglo-Saxon
times.

It was, in fact, of considerable importance that the primate, on whose
co-operation with the King th