Читать книгу Magna Carta: A Commentary on the Great Charter of King John. With an Historical Introduction онлайн
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Stephen Langton, however, desired a peaceable solution if possible, and three days later we find him, after a somewhat hurried journey, at Northampton, on the 28th of August, striving earnestly, and with success, to avert civil war between John and the recalcitrant Crown tenants in the north.
His line of argument is worthy of especial note. The King, he urged, must not levy war on his subjects before he had obtained a legal judgment against them. The substance of this advice should be compared with the terms of chapter 39 of Magna Carta. John resented the interference of Stephen in lay matters, and continued his march to Nottingham; but threats of fresh excommunications caused him at length to consent to substitute legal process for violence, and to appoint a day for the trial of the defaulters before the Curia Regis—a trial which never took place.[15]
John apparently continued his journey as far north as Durham, but returned to meet the new papal legate Nicholas, to whom he performed the promised homage and repeated the formal act of surrender in St. Paul’s on 3rd October.[16] Having thus completed his alliance with the Pope, he was confident of worsting his enemies in France and England. As most, if not all, of the great magnates were against him, he saw that it would be well to strengthen his position by support of the class beneath them in the feudal scheme of society. Perhaps it was this that led John to broaden the basis of the national assembly. The great Council which met at Oxford on 15th November, 1213, was made notable by the presence, in addition to the Crown tenants, of representatives of the various counties. The sheriffs, in the words of the King’s writs, were to cause to assemble all knights already summoned (that is, the Crown tenants) and four discreet men of each county “ad loquendum nobiscum de negotiis regni nostri.” Miss Norgate[17] lays stress on the fact that these writs were issued after the death of the great Justiciar Geoffrey Fitz-Peter, and before any successor had been appointed. John, she argues, acted on his own initiative, and is thus entitled to the credit of being the first statesman to introduce representatives of the counties into the national assembly. The importance of this precedent need not be obscured by the selfish nature of the motives to which it was due. Knights who were tenants of mesne lords (Miss Norgate says “yeomen”) were invited to act as a counterpoise to the barons. This innovation anticipated the line of progress afterwards followed by de Montfort and Edward I. Compared with it, the often-praised provisions of chapter 14 of Magna Carta must be regarded as antiquated and even reactionary.