barons ask for my kingdom also? Their demands are vain and visionary, and are unsupported by any plea of reason whatever." And at length he angrily declared with an oath, that he would never grant them such liberties as would render him their slave. The principal of these laws and liberties, which the nobles required to be confirmed to them, are partly described above in the charter of king Henry, and partly are extracted from the old laws of king Edward, as the following history will show in due time.

The Castle of Northampton besieged by the Barons.

As the archbishop and William Marshal could not by any persuasions induce the king to agree to their demands, they returned by the king's order to the barons, and duly reported all they had heard from the king to them; and when the nobles heard what John said, they appointed Robert Fitz-Walter commander of their soldiers, giving him the title of " Marshal of the army of God and the holy church," and then, one and all flying to arms, they directed their forces towards Northampton. On their arrival there they at once laid siege to the castle, but after having stayed there for fifteen days, and having gained little or no advantage, they determined to move their camp; for having come without petrariae1 and other engines of war, they, without accomplishing their purpose, proceeded in confusion to the castle of Bedford. At that siege the standardbearer of Robert Fitz-Walter, amongst other slain, was pierced through the head with an arrow from a cross-bow and died, to the grief of many.

How the City of London was given up to the Barons.

When the army of the barons arrived at Bedford, they were received with all respect by William de Beauchamp. There also came to them there messengers from the city of London, secretly telling them, if they wished to get into that city, to come there immediately. The barons, inspirited by the arrival of this agreeable message, immediately moved their camp and arrived at Ware; after this they marched the whole night, and arrived early in the morning at the city of London, and, finding the gates open, they, on the 24th of May, which was the Sunday next before our Lord's ascension, entered the city without any tumult whilst the inhabitants were performing divine

1 Engines for hurling stones.

service, for the rich citizens were favourable to the barons, and the poor ones were afraid to murmur against them. The barons having thus got into the city, placed their own guards in charge of each of the gates, and then arranged all matters in the city at will. They then took security from the citizens, and sent letters throughout England to those earls, barons and knights, who appeared to be still faithful to the king, though they only pretended to be so, and advised them with threats, as they regarded the safety of all their property and possessions, to abandon a king who was perjured and who warred against his barons, and together with them to stand firm and fight against the king for their rights and for peace; and that, if they refused to do this, they, the barons, would make war against them all, as against open enemies, and would destroy their castles, burn their houses and other buildings, and destroy their warrens, parks and orchards.

The conference between the King and the Barons.

King John, when he saw that he was deserted by almost all, so that out of his regal superabundance of followers he scarcely retained seven knights, was much alarmed lest the barons would attack his castles and reduce them without difficulty, as they would find no obstacle to their so doing; and he deceitfully pretended to make peace for a time with the aforesaid barons, and sent William Marshal earl of Pembroke, with other trustworthy messengers, to them, and told them that, for the sake of peace, and for the exaltation and honour of the kingdom, he would willingly grant them the laws and liberties they required; he also sent word to the barons by these same messengers, to appoint a fitting day and place to meet and carry all these matters into effect. The king's messengers then came in all haste to London, and without deceit reported to the barons all that had been deceitfully imposed on them; they in their great joy appointed the 15th of June for the king to meet them, at a field lying between Staines and Windsor. cordingly, at the time and place pre-agreed on, the king and nobles came to the appointed conference, and when each party had stationed themselves apart from the other, they began a long discussion about terms of peace and the aforesaid liberties. There were present on behalf of the king, the archbishops, Stephen of Canterbury, and H. of Dublin; the bishops W. of London, P. of Winchester, H. of Lincoln, J. of Bath, Walter

Ac

of Worcester, W. of Coventry, and Benedict of Rochester; master Pandulph familiar of our lord the pope, and brother Almeric the master of the knights-templars in England; the nobles, William Marshal earl of Pembroke, the earl of Salisbury, earl Warrenne, the earl of Arundel, Alan de Galway, W. Fitz-Gerald, Peter Fitz-Herbert, Alan Basset, Matthew FitzHerbert, Thomas Basset, Hugh de Neville, Hubert de Burgh seneschal of Poictou, Robert de Ropeley, John Marshal and Philip d'Aubeny. Those who were on behalf of the barons it is not necessary to enumerate, since the whole nobility of England were now assembled together in numbers not to be computed. At length, after various points on both sides had been discussed, king John, seeing that he was inferior in strength to the barons, without raising any difficulty, granted the underwritten laws and liberties, and confirmed them by his charter as follows.

31. THE ATTITUDE OF ST. ALBAN'S CHRONICLERS TOWARDS HENRY III. AND SIMON OF MONTFORT (1252).

Matthew Paris overtops other chroniclers of the St. Alban's group by virtue of vividness, conception, attainments and opportunity. Apart from his natural bent towards history, the advantages which he enjoyed were a regular education, encouragement from his superiors, a well stocked monastic library, conversation with the heads of church and state in England, practical experience of affairs, and travel. St. Alban's seldom passed many months without visits from the king, or some prelate or some nobleman of high degree, and all talked freely to the man who could dispense future fame. Thus Henry III., spending a week at the abbey in 1257, told him the circumstances of Earl Richard's election to the imperial crown. The years 1235-1259 are Matthew's particular field. He had retouched the works of John de Cella and Wendover, but his own share in the Chronica Majora commences at 1235. Despite his acquaintance with Henry (and even despite certain complimentary attentions which he had received from the king) his sympathies were wholly on the barons' side. He had no confidence in the government's straightforwardness or ability,

detested the Poitevins and other foreigners, and admired Montfort. His chronicle abounds in personal reflections on the royal favourites, and these three citations from one year, 1252, form a good example of his steady tone.

SOURCE.-Chronica Majora. Matthew Paris (d. 1259). Trans. J. A. Giles. London, 1853. P. 482, p. 510 and p. 522.

(A) 1. Of the King of England's severity to his own subjects, and his prodigality to foreigners.

Previous to the termination of the before-mentioned parliament, the king, who was become inexorable to the petitions of any one, and not only would not grant any delay, however short, to his debtors, but coerced his natural subjects without pity, and without any considerations of prudence, in order the more to draw blood from the hearts of his subjects, bestowed a portion of land worth 500 marks on a certain Poitevin, named Elias de Rabani, a man utterly unworthy of such a great honour. Thus on the one side he was greedy and insatiable; on the other, he proved himself a wasteful squanderer of the wealth of the kingdom.

2. Of the dreadful ravages made in England by foreigners.

During all this time, through the many-shaped cunning of Satan, the people of England in general-barons, knights, citizens, merchants and labourers, and especially religious men, were labouring under a most pestilential infliction; for the higher ranks of the foreigners imposed on the lower classes so many laborious services, and harassed them by so many robberies and injuries, that of all nations existing, England appeared to be in the lowest condition. In one place the houses of merchants, in another their carts, and their small possessions, were forcibly seized on, and nothing was left as an indemnity for them, save tallages and ridicule. On seeing these proceedings, some even of the more noble of the English, whom I am ashamed to mention by name, said in their pride, and with accompanying oaths, "There are now many kings and tyrants in England, and we ought to be kings, and tyrannise the same as others"; and so they became worse than the rest. If any one who had been grievously injured laid his complaint before the Poitevins, whose heads were turned by

1 Taxes,

their vast riches and possessions, and asked for justice to be done to him according to the law of the land, they replied, "We care nothing for the law of the land: what are the ordinances or customs to us?" Thus the natives of the country, especially the religious men, were as dirt in the sight of foreigners, in whose steps some of the English were not ashamed to follow. On one occasion, Brother Matthew Paris, the writer of this book, and Roger de Thurkeby, a knight and a man of letters, were taking their meal together at one table, when Brother Matthew mentioned the aforesaid oppressions, and the above-named knight said seriously in reply, "The time is coming, O religious men! and, indeed, now is, when every one who oppresses you thinks he is doing God a service; indeed, I think that these injurious oppressions and troubles are not far short of utter ruin ". When the said Matthew heard this speech, it brought to his mind the saying, that "in the last days of the world, there will be men, loving themselves, who have no regard to the advantage of their neighbours ".

3. How the King distributed the vacant revenues amongst unworthy persons.

The king, however, persisted in his usual extravagances, and as if in revenge for this opposition of the prelates, continued to distribute the vacant escheats and revenues amongst unknown, scurrilous and undeserving foreigners, in order to inflict an irreparable wound upon the heads of his natural subjects. Not to mention others, we think it right to mention in this volume the following case, as one out of many. In the service of Geoffrey de Lusignan, the king's brother, was a certain chaplain, who served as a fool and buffoon to the king, the said Geoffrey his master and all the court, and whose sayings, like those of a silly jester and club-bearer, contributed to their amusement, and excited their laughter; and on this man the king bestowed the rich church of Preston, which had formerly belonged to William Haverhull, the lately-deceased treasurer of the king, the yearly proceeds of which church amounted to more than a hundred pounds. This same chaplain, a Poitevin by birth, utterly ignorant alike in manners and learning, we have seen pelting the king, his brother Geoffrey, and other nobles, whilst walking in the orchard of St. Alban's, with turf, stones and green apples, and pressing the juice of unripe grapes in their eyes, like one devoid of sense. Despicable alike in his gesture, mode of speech, and habits, as well as in size