Читать книгу Magna Carta: A Commentary on the Great Charter of King John. With an Historical Introduction онлайн

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On 15th June the King and the Barons met. On the side of the insurgents appeared a great host; on the monarch’s, merely a small band of magnates, loyal to the person of the King, but only half-hearted, at the best, in his support. Their names may be read in the preamble to the Charter: the chief among them, Stephen Langton, still nominally neutral, was known to be in full sympathy with the rebels.

Dr. Stubbs,^[30] maintaining that the whole baronage of England was implicated in these stirring events, gives a masterly analysis of its more conspicuous members into four great groups: (1) the Northumbrani or Norenses of the chroniclers, names famous in the northern counties, who had been the first to raise the standard of open revolt, and retained the lead throughout; (2) the other nobles from all parts of England, who had shown themselves ready from an early date to co-operate with the Northerners—“the great baronial families that had been wise enough to cast away the feudal aspirations of their forefathers, and the rising houses which had sprung from the ministerial nobility”; (3) the moderate party who, ready to worship the rising sun, deserted John after London had joined the rebels, including even the King’s half-brother (the Earl of Salisbury), the loyal Marshal, Hubert de Burgh, and other ministers of the Crown, whose names may be read in the preamble to the Charter; and (4) the tools of John’s misgovernment, mostly men of foreign birth, tied to John by motives of interest as well as by personal loyalty, since their differences with the baronial leaders lay too deep for reconciliation, most of whom are branded by name in Magna Carta as for ever incapable of holding office in the realm. These men of desperate fortunes alone remained whole-hearted on John’s side when the crisis came.^[31]