lengeria nostra. Quare volumus et firmiter praecipimus quod praedicti barones nostri civitatis nostrae Londoniarum eligant sibi majorem singulis annis de seipsis praedicto modo, et quod habeant omnes praedictas libertates bene et in pace, integre et plenarie, cum omnibus ad hujusmodi libertates pertinentibus, sicut praedictum est. Testibus dominis P. Winton, W. Wygorn., W. Coventr. episcopis, Willelmo Brigwerre, Petro filio Herberti, Galfrido de Lucy, et Johanne Filio Hugonis. Datum per manus magistri Ricardi de Mariscis cancellarii nostri, apud Novum Templum Londoniis, IX. die Maii, anno regni nostri sexto decimo. (Charter Rolls, p. 207.)

PART VI.

SELECT CHARTERS AND EXCERPTS; Henry III.

A.D. 1216-1272.

Archbishops of Canterbury. Stephen Langton, 1216-1228: Richard le Grand, 1229-1231; Edmund Rich, 1234-1240; Boniface of Savoy, 1245-1270. Chief Justices. Hubert de Burgh, 1216-1232; Stephen Segrave, 12321234; Hugh Bigot, 1258-1260; Hugh le Despencer, 1260; Philip Basset, 1261.

Chancellors. Richard de Marisco, 1216-1226; Ralph Neville, 1226-1244; Walter de Merton, 1261; Nicolas de Ely, 1263; Thomas Cantilupe, 1265; Walter Giffard, 1265; Godfrey Giffard, 1267; Richard Middleton, 1269-1272.

THE thirteenth century was a period unparalleled in medieval history for brilliancy and fertility. It abounded with great men -kings, statesmen, and scholars. Coming between the hardheaded and hard-handed industry of the twelfth, and the cruel, frivolous, unreal splendour of the fourteenth, it unites all that is noble in the former, all that is romantic in the latter. A period more productive of ideas in every department of culture the world has never seen. But it was in some respects a precocious age. Many of the ideas which it produced luxuriantly, and for which its heroes risked all, were premature. Hence it is a period of great failures answering to too great designs. The long reign of Henry III extends over more than half of this wonderful age and the history of England has very much in common with the general character of the time. Henry himself was anything but a great man. Although free from some of the most glaring faults of his family, he was vain and mean, foolish and false. Yet the brilliancy of the time shed some little

glory upon him. He filled in Europe a position created for him perhaps by the labours of his grandfather and uncle, brought into prominence by the failure and fall of Frederick II, and made influential by his close connexion with the other sovereigns of Christendom; but out of all proportion to his ability. He was magnificent, liberal, a patron of art, and a benefactor of foreigners. His reputation for wealth laid him open to the extortions of all the needy in Europe; his patronage of them left him poor; and his poverty brought out his meanness and deceit at home. He seems, like his father, to have had a facility for incurring deadly personal enmity. He had not the energy, impulsiveness, and general cleverness of John, and was quite as unready. In an age of great ministers such a monarch would have been even more insignificant in his own country than Henry actually was. But after he took the administration into his own hands he had no great minister; all the able statesmanship was on the side of the opposition. The difficulties of the kingdom and the hardships of the people did not retard their growth. In the great variety of expedients used to promote the purposes of government, in the raising of revenue, the levying of forces, the amendment of laws, and the execution of political designs, there is distinctly traceable a development of the national life on its ancient basis; a constant tendency to get rid of feudal forms and feudal principles. The early years of the reign, in which the penalty for John's misrule was still being paid, were to a certain extent marked by reaction: feudal habits were resuscitated during the anarchy, and had to be met by old measures. The premature development of constitutional principles in the later years should be compared with this. Between the two, the reign singularly epitomises both earlier and later history. In 1225 we are among the adulterine' castles and foreign mercenaries of Stephen's reign; in 1258 we are deep in the reforming projects which were still premature under Edward II and Richard II. The constitutional history of the time is a study of considerable labour, owing partly to this diversity of characteristics, and partly to the abundant supply of evidences

which themselves share the experimental character of the politics of the day.

The natural division of the reign is into three epochs the first containing the sixteen years during which the government was in the hands of William Marshall and Hubert de Burgh; the second, from 1232 to 1252, during which Henry acted either under the influence of Peter des Roches, or as his own minister on the same principles; and the third, from 1252 to 1272, during which the struggle with the barons lasted, and the power of the king was, sometimes with and sometimes without his apparent acquiescence, controlled by compulsory advisers.

I. William Marshall lived long enough to finish the struggle with the French: he died in 1219. The tutelage of the papal legates continued until 1221, when Archbishop Langton obtained the recall of Pandulf and a promise that no new legate should be sent during his life. The foreign influences were thus got rid of. But the dangerous friends remained; William of Aumâle, who represented the old feudal party, was brought to submission in 1221; and Falkes de Breauté, who represented the foreign mercenaries, in 1224. The field was open to Hubert de Burgh and Peter des Roches, who, until the country was at peace, worked fairly together. The poverty of the crown, and the exhaustion of its resources by the measures taken to secure the country and to recover the French inheritance, necessitated heavy taxation and constant renewals of the charters; and the circumstances were such as to provoke strong opposition and dislike of both the ministers. In 1227 Henry dismissed Peter des Roches, repudiated the charters of the forests, and put himself into the hands of Hubert, who for the next five years governed well, though not with brilliant success. His principles were those of a strong administrator; the charters were scarcely regarded as binding, but some respect was shown to the spirit of them: notwithstanding the omission of the 12th and 14th articles of John's charter, the taxes were asked as a matter of course; but all objections to a grant were systematically ignored. The great leader of the opposition at this period was the Earl of Chester, Ranulf, a

determined opponent of royal and papal exactions, whose attitude shows very remarkably the alteration in the character of the older feudal nobility produced by the training of Henry II's reign.

II. Hubert de Burgh was dismissed with the greatest ingratitude and with his usual meanness by Henry in 1232: and with the adoption of Peter des Roches as his prime minister began the king's earlier series of difficulties with his nobles. The foreign relations of his mother, and after his marriage in 1236, those of his wife; the rapacity of the papal envoys, and Henry's foolish compliance with all their demands; and the expenses incurred in the king's attempts to maintain his position in continental politics, increased the troubles. The leader of the opposition now was the earl marshal Richard, who died in 1234. This was a period of great exactions and unfeeling tyranny on the king's part; the period of S. Edmund and Robert Grosseteste, whose experiences threw the great body of the clergy into determined opposition to the joint oppression of king and pope. It was also the period of the rise of Simon de Montfort. The political history is little more than a detail of heavy demands for money, ineffectual protests, and ever-increasing irritation. The king's wisest adviser was his brother Earl Richard of Cornwall, who was more astute, more plausible, and probably more honest, certainly much more able, than Henry. For a great part of the period Henry acted without the assistance of the regular staff of ministers. Stephen Segrave, who after the disgrace of Hubert de Burgh occupied the once great post of Justiciar, was dismissed in 1234, and no successor on the old terms was appointed. The Chancellor, Ralph Neville, in spite of constant struggles with the king and practical loss of power, retained his office until 1244; after which Henry ruled with no properly constituted Justiciar, Chancellor, or Treasurer. As the irritation increased, the absence of these functionaries, wh› until they were lost sight of had been objects of dislike, became a ground of complaint; and the idea gained ground that it was the right of the community to limit the king's prerogative by the appointment of his counsellors. The details of the transactions of the whole period are abundant, intricate, and dreary.