Seven hundred and twenty years ago to-day King John of England was recovering from a tempera mental display, because the day before he had completed one of the most outstanding pieces of English Mterature. Not that he wanted to, but when one is faced with a lot of bold bad men, leaning on long swords and telling one what will happen if their wishes are not met, what is a poor King to do? So John affixed his seal to Magna Carta and then rolled amongst the rushes on the floor at Runnymede,—at least that is what some histotians say,—foaming at the mouth, saying a lot of naughty things about the barons who, fortunately for him, though perhaps unfortunately for his kingdom, were not there to hear what he said, for barons were apt in those days actively to resent a Uttle personal abuse while as for oblique references to ancestry they became positively murderous. He was a wretched fellow was John. He did not play square with his father or his brother Richard, of the Lion Heart, who forgave him and secured his succession to the throne, he murdered little Arthur who by the law of primogeniture had 9 better claim to the crown while for his subjects, John merely looked upon them asa source of wealth, to be completely squeezed dry of money, and then squeezed a little more to make sure there was nothing left, At least that is what things looked like when John started a quarrel with the Church. There he met his match. It did not matter what the barons thought of their monarch, but when the clergy would place the land under an interdict, and deprive the people of the consolations of their religion, when they took sides with the dis~ contented nobility and endowed their rebellious conduct with the inetity of religious support John found himself in for a thin time, But Kings who do not behave themselves do not deserve anything but a thin time and John got it, Probably if he had left the Church alone he might have ended his sixteen years of inglorious reign in peace, but when the Archbishopric of Canterbury became vacant, John and Pope Innocent III got into a Aittle bickering as to who should be offered the post. John contended that the office was within his gift, while Innocent, supported by his clergy contended that the selection of the Archbishop was a matter purely for the Church, The quarrel was settled in 1213 with the appointment of the papal nominee, Stephen Langton, and for a time John was relieved of trouble from that quarter. Not for long, however, for the struggle with the barons proceeded apace and within a couple of years the clergy were again siding with the barons who put the screws on their King and eventually persuaded him to drop in for a quiet chat in a meadow between Staines and Windsor called Runnymede. There he was presented with Magna Carta 14 told gently but very firmly to.
ign along the dotted line, which he did and then went into the display of temper reference to which opens this article. It is a human fa that men do not always know their own minds. Here had been this quarrel with the Church which the Church had won, and the very first chaplet of the Great Charter was designed to verify that victory, for in it was stipulated that the English Church shall be free and shall enjoy freedom of election. It was by no means a new provision to be placed in such a document. It had appeared in the charter of Henry T and others, but the Church was king sure that there should be no mistake about it in the future, and, what is more, got their point in rst, Having signed the document and survived his rush rolling anger, John set about to destroy it and the very first to come to his assist ance was the Church. It might be argued that Innocent IIT was taking a highly righteous stand when, in August 1215, he denounced Magna Carta in a Papal Bull which pronounced it null and void. Innocent found that the document had been extracted from the King by force, per vim et mecum, and then went on to use a little forceful Latin to the effect that it was composition em hujusmodt reprobamus penitus et damnamus. He followed this up by excommunicating, the barons who, naughtily enough, started another fight with the badly used John. The latter did a little better with his generalship than in some of his former campaigns where as a leader of soldiers he would probably have made a good market gardener, for he captured Rochester Castle and had some further successes until the barons in dismay invited Louis, son of Philip Augustus of France, to come across and accept the English crown dir= fectly they could get it for him. Innocent vetoed the idea but he was not always as completely obeyed by the faithful as he should have been, for Louis accepting the invitation crossed the Channel and occupied London and Winchester, in May 1216. John kept up the fight and was still in the field when as a dying man he went to Newark [Castle there to end his turbulent Tt would take a great deal too much space to consider all that *he charter he signed meant to the English. There are many clauses! dealing with matters of high policy, but after preventing the king from collecting money in an oppressive] manner, the draftsman appear to have given a kindly thought to the Jews. Thus it was provided that, money borrowed from Jews should not bear interest during minority. Another provided for the repayment, of borrowed money to the Jews, s0 that there appears to have been some degree of fairness kept in mind, though any Jew who would lend money to a minor without interest would require the services fof an alienist, especially in those days when money was hard to come by and more difficult to keep. Of most of the other chapters the average man is more or less informed, but there is one delight ful passage which warms the hearts of the opponents feminism. No} one could be arrested on the appeal of a woman unless for the murder of her husband. That! kept the creatures in their proper lace, because as a woman could not prove her case in the judicial combat it was considered that the earlier practice gave her an unfair advantage, which only goes to show that even in those remote days the woman did not necessarily have hold of the thin end of the stick. And then, singularly enough, this document' of which Innocent IIT so strongly disapprove Jed ended up with a repetition of the promise of the freedom of tha! Church and of their rights and liberties to all Ever since people have either indulged in rhapsodies over_the epoch making nature of the Great Charter or done their best to "debunk" it. Sir Edward Coke found in it a full and proper legal] Janswer to all the exactions of the Stuart kings and a remedy for every evil suffered at the tims Blackstone is equally admiring. Edmund Burke claimed that "if it did not actually give us originally, the House of Commons, it gave us Jat least a House of Commons of weight and consequence," and a lot of other commentators are equally rhetorical in their praise. But though many believe that! Magna Carta gave equal rights to all English men, are they entirely, correct? The villeins who formed the majority of the people got every little from it in fact the only clauses which protected them did 's0 because they were the property of their lords and, therefore, valuable. They obtained neither political nor civil rights. The traders received little, while preferential treatment was meted out to the clergy and the greater share fell to the larger landholders while the ismail owners obtained a few crumbs from the rich man's table. It did not establish freedom from arbitra
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.