When Henry II died in 1189, he left a strong central government and a unified people, but once again surviving sons set immediately out to destroy nearly all the efforts of their father. 32-year old Richard I had visited England only twice before, and to Richard the Lion-Hearted his inheritance was of little interest, except as a source of income. During his entire reign he spent only a few brief months in England; much of his time was wasted in squandering a huge fortune on the Crusades to free the Holy Land. The government of England, meanwhile, remained in the hands of the justicars, the political and judicial officers of the kingdom, whose ruthless oppression quickly overwhelmed the country’s population. It was a sign of the times that during this same period was born the legend of Robin Hood.
Richard I returned to England only one more time, mainly to bleed the country dry in order to finance yet another war with France in defense of his Continental possessions. When in April 1199, during a siege in the province of Aquitaine, the king was mortally wounded, the crown passed to the youngest son of Henry II, and with the coronation of John, dark days fell over the kingdom of England.
John – no numbers there, for, significantly, perhaps, there never was another English king named John – had stayed on in France, resolved to carry on the defenses of his European possessions that his brother had begun. But his arrogant, often cruel personality soon offended every influential person around him; so much so, in fact, that within a short time many of the Norman barons deserted their king and joined Philip Augustus, the king of France, against him. Unable to get either revenues or assistance from his own vassals, his fighting forces and supplies dwindling, John capitulated. In December 1203, he suddenly and secretly left for England, leaving his desperate Continental forces to get along as best they could. With Philip Augustus’ forces steadily pressing the attacks, the outcome was predictable: Normandy was captured, followed quickly by Maine, Anjou, Touraine and Brittany. By 1205, the only remaining evidence of the once vast Angevian Empire was the province of Aquitaine.
John had barely overcome this humiliation, when he was faced with a new challenge to his authority, and once again it was the issue of the Archbishop of Canterbury. In that same troublesome year of 1205, another archbishop had died, and from Rome came the announcement that Pope Innocent III had appointed as the successor Stephen Langton, a distinguished English cardinal and popular lecturer at the University of Paris. The ever-dour King John arrogantly rejected the appointment; the kings of England had always controlled the choice of archbishops in their kingdom, he pronounced; and besides, he knew nothing of Stephen Langton except that he lived in France, the worst enemy of England. In complete disregard of his own father’s experiences in the Thomas Becket affair, John once again confiscated the revenues of Canterbury, thereby challenging one of the strongest and most determined of Popes ever.
In March, 1208, after many months of futile negotiations, Innocent III rolled out the heavy artillery: he placed an interdict over all England, which suspended all public church services, all religious rites such as marriages, baptisms, and funerals. In an age when their religious faith was all the common people had to rely on, an interdict was a powerful weapon, indeed; it cut off all sources of spiritual life for the people, and many a peasant undoubtedly felt that they faced the prospect of eternal damnation if they could no longer participate in church rituals. John, however, was neither impressed or intimidated. In a furious rage he ordered all church and monastic properties seized, taking over their operation as well as their revenues, once again forcing many of the bishops and monks from the country. Innocent III responded by excommunicating the king, which only enraged John some more. For the next three years, these two headstrong men tried to intimidate each other without arriving at a resolution.
In 1212, the Pope finally uncovered his trump card: invoking the 460-year old Donation of Constantine, Innocent III declared John deposed, released all his subjects from their allegiance to him, and in a grandiose gesture handed the kingdom of England over to Philip Augustus of France. Philip, no doubt delighted with this unexpected turn of events, quickly proposed an invasion of England to carry out the papal decree, but Innocent held him off. Probably, the Pope never expected his decision to be taken at face value; his intentions had been merely to frighten John. And frighten the king he did; in April 1213, terrified that he would lose England to his hated French rival as he had already lost most of his Continental possessions, John finally surrendered. Not only did he accept Langton as Archbishop of Canterbury, he agreed to pay compensation to the Church for its losses during that period, agreed to recall the exiled monks and bishops, and even agreed to pay an annual tribute of 1,000 marks to Rome. When the humiliating surrender was complete, John was reinstated as ruler of England, and as member of the Church. The interdict was removed and church services resumed in the kingdom.
But John now faced an outraged nation. The haughty Anglo-Norman barons, already furious over the losses on the Continent, rose in rebellion. In a desperate attempt to recover some of his royal authority and respect, John tried an invasion of France, but that expedition, too, failed miserably. When the king returned empty-handed to England in January, 1215, the barons presented him with a series of grievances and demands, and in June of that year, at a meeting at Runnymede, John and his lords worked out the details of a document known as the Great Charter – Magna Carta.
As written, Magna Carta was essentially a contract between the king of England and his feudal barons, who thereby hoped to curb some of John’s arbitrary, often vicious acts. But in order to gain the support of other interests as well, the barons had inserted numerous clauses for the benefit of the cities’ merchants, the freemen, the clergy. Thus the charter came to include such now-familiar demands as one which prohibited the king from authorizing taxes without the consent of the people. Another declared that “No freeman shall be captured or imprisoned . . . except by the lawful judgment of his peers and by the laws of the land.” Re-issued several times with many revisions, Magna Carta over the centuries became a sacred document, a symbol of justice and equality for all, much like the United States Constitution was to become six centuries later, though that is considerably more than any of the Norman barons had envisioned in those dark days of 1215.
At the time, probably no one expected Magna Carta to be more than a gentlemen’s understanding, but John was not prepared to grant even that much. He had no sooner signed the document, than he sent messengers to Rome, asking the Pope to absolve him from all promises he had made. Innocent III was anxious to have the king of England, his newest ally, participate in yet another crusade to the Holy Land, and in August, 1215, he declared Magna Carta unjust, unlawful, and void. Within weeks, civil war broke out throughout the land, as Englishmen now seriously allied themselves with the king of France, even offering him the English throne. This time, however, both King and Pope solved the entire problem in permanent fashion. Innocent III died in July 1216, followed in October of the same year by John. The king’s son, crowned Henry III, quickly reaffirmed the provisions of Magna Carta – or rather, the Earl of Pembroke did in his behalf, for Henry III was only nine years old.
With only minor interruptions, England now entered on a long period of peace within her borders, a welcome respite from the continuous wars and civil wars of past centuries. Henry III ruled for 56 years, and his successor, Edward I, for another 25 years, and it was during these nine decades that there developed England’s political institutions much as they exist today. Already under the Anglo-Saxon kings, a council of leading men had met to approve royal successors and to discuss policy; even after the Norman conquest, a council of great barons and clergy had continued this tradition. Magna Carta had meanwhile greatly reduced royal power, and more and more of the barons and nobles of the kingdom participated in governmental decisions. Finally, under the Provisions of Oxford, a permanent council of fifteen was set up to advise the king. This council was to meet three times a year and confer with twelve representative barons, while a committee of twenty-four was to deal with finance. Eight years later met the so-called Model Parliament, which for the first time included two knights from each shire or county, as well as members from cities and boroughs. Although the Provisions of Oxford were soon annulled again, a precedent had been set; once begun, it would never be allowed to die. Under Edward I, the first complete Parliament was again convened in 1295, for, according to the king, “that which touches all shall be approved by all,” and “common dangers must be met by measures concerted in common.” There were three estates of the kingdom that comprised this Parliament: barons and prelates; lesser clergy; and commons – two knights from each shire or county, two citizens from each city, and two burgesses from each borough. Unless amended or repealed, acts passed hereafter by the English Parliament remained the law of the land.

The 13th century of Christian civilization was about to close. Much of the Western world was still submerged in violence and confusion, with overlords oppressing their vassals, the vassals exploiting the serfs and peasants. Another century was about to begin, and the 1300s were to prove the most disastrous hundred years yet. But on the English island kingdom, so relatively recent still a pagan stronghold, the first representative government had already reared its head.