irring
questions of which no mention had been made either under the King's
father or brother? He censured the barons for refusing the scutage,
which had been paid from old times, and for their threat of proceeding
sword in hand. He repeated his command to them to break up their
confederacy, under threat of excommunication.

As one step lower the primate and nobles, so in the highest sphere
Innocent and John were in alliance. The Papacy, then in possession of
supremacy over the world, made common cause with royalty. Would not
the nobles, some from reverence for the supreme Pontiff's authority,
others from a sense of religious obligation, yield to this alliance?
Such was not their intention.[32]

The King proffered the barons an arbitration, the umpire to be the
Pope, or else an absolute reference of the whole matter to him, who
then by his apostolic power could settle what was right and lawful.
They could not possibly accept either the one or the other, after the
known declarations of the Pope. As they persevered in their hostile
attitude, the King called on the archbishop to carry out the
instructions of a Papal brief, and pronounce the barons
excommunicated. Stephen Langton answered that he knew better what was
the true intention of the holy father. The Pope's name this time
remained quite powerless. Rather it was preached in London that the
highest spiritual power should not encroach on temporal affairs;
Peter, in the significant phrase of the time, could not be Constantine
as well.[33] Only among the lower citizens was there a party
favourable to the King, but they were put down at a blow by the great
barons and the rich citizens. The capital threw its whole weight on
the side of the barons. They rose in arms and formally renounced their
allegiance to the King; they proclaimed war against him under the name
of 'the army of God.' Thus confronted by the whole kingdom, in which
there appeared to be only one opinion, the King had no means of
resistance remaining, no choice left.

He came down--15th June, 1215--from Windsor to the meadow at
Runnymede, where the barons lay encamped, and signed the articles laid
before him, happy enough in getting some of them softened. The Great
Charter came into being, truly the 'Magna Charta,' which throws not
merely all earlier, but also the later charters into the shade.

It is a document which, more than any other, links together the
different epochs of English history. With a re