ictory, he ran away, of course, and made a
truce for five years.

And now the time approached when he was to be still further humbled, and
made to feel, if he could feel any thing, what a wretched creature he was.
Of all men in the world, Stephen Langton seemed raised up by Heaven to
oppose and subdue him. When he ruthlessly burnt and destroyed the property
of his own subjects, because their lords, the Barons, would not serve him
abroad, Stephen Langton fearlessly reproved and threatened him. When he
swore to restore the laws of King Edward, or the laws of King Henry the
First, Stephen Langton knew his falsehood, and pursued him through all his
evasions. When the Barons met at the abbey of Saint Edmund's-Bury, to
consider their wrongs and the King's oppressions, Stephen Langton roused
them by his fervid words to demand a solemn charter of rights and
liberties from their perjured master, and to swear, one by one, on the
high altar, that they would have it, or would wage war against him to the
death. When the King hid himself in London from the Barons, and was at
last obliged to receive them, they told him roundly they would not believe
him unless Stephen Langton became a surety that he would keep his word.
When he took the Cross, to invest himself with some interest, and belong
to something that was received with favor, Stephen Langton was still
immovable. When he appealed to the Pope, and the Pope wrote to Stephen
Langton in behalf of his new favorite, Stephen Langton was deaf, even to
the Pope himself, and saw before him nothing but the welfare of England
and the crimes of the English King.

At Easter time, the Barons assembled at Stamford in Lincolnshire, in proud
array, and, marching near to Oxford where the King was, delivered into the
hands of Stephen Langton and two others, a list of grievances. "And
these," they said, "he must redress, or we will do it for ourselves?" When
Stephen Langton told the King as much, and read the list to him, he went
half mad with rage. But that did him no more good than his afterward
trying to pacify the Barons with lies. They called themselves and their
followers, "The army of God and the Holy Church." Marching through the
country, with the people thronging to them every where (except at
Northampton, where they failed in an attack upon the castle), they at last
triumphantly set up their banner in London itself, whither the whole land,
tired of the tyrant, seemed to flock to join them