Runnymede spreads before you, the famous field on which the English people wrested from a tyrannous monarch their great table of laws. You see a green meadow stretching along the marge of “silver-footed Thames,” a pasturage in no degree distinguished from scores of others in that fair valley. Fronting it is a little island, set like an emerald in the shining waters. Meadow and island should enchain your attention, for here a deed is to be done of deep and solemn import, immeasurable in its effects upon the lives and fortunes of generations yet unborn.

Here you shall see the seed sown which is to shoot up into a goodly tree, bearing as its fruits that liberty, civilization, and knowledge in which we rejoice to-day. Long centuries of toil and struggle will elapse before it is deep-rooted in the soil; the weeds of error and wrong will threaten to choke it; the fierce sun of tyranny will scorch it; the piercing winds of privilege will numb it: but the hardy plant will not succumb. It will be tended by devoted hands, and watered with blood and tears, until it spreads its branches far and wide, and is reckoned the glory of the land. New-graffed with every generation, and branching into offshoots which bear little semblance to the parent stock, it still remains, worthy of all our reverence and regard as the sturdy root of the Constitution under which Britons dwell as the freest nation of the world.

Look at the meadow on this side of the Thames. Busy hands are setting up a pavilion of white and gold, for the sojourn of a king. Other pavilions are rising on Runnymede itself, and on the island too, where a canopied throne is set up. Now the actors in the scene begin to arrive. Mail-clad barons armed as for the fray, grim and determined, solemn of port and sober of converse, draw near. An archbishop with his train of priests joins the armed throng. All the magnates of England, spiritual and secular, are here—and they are here to coerce a king.

All is ready, and now the king leaves his bannered pavilion, and crossing the narrow waters to the isle proceeds towards the throne. Watch him closely, for his like has never before worn the English crown, and—please God—never will again. Look at his fierce, dark countenance, over which waves of passion continually spread, like the ripples on yonder waters. He is the scourge of his land, the worst monarch with which England has been cursed—worse even than Rufus. Bad son, bad husband, bad father, bad king, there is scarce a crime in the whole black calendar of which he may not be justly accused. He is cruel, false, greedy, untruthful, and vile; yet out of his wickedness wondrous good shall come.

He has fought his father, he has wronged his brother, and he has murdered the little nephew who stood in his way. The poor child Arthur, heir to the English throne and to England’s wide realms in France, fell into his hands twelve years ago. John offered him terms, but the lad, brimful of the spirit of his race, would strike no bargain with the “shameless king.” He was close pent in a Norman castle, and thither John dispatched his unwilling minister, Hubert de Burgh, to put out the lad’s eyes. But the frenzied appeals of the little prince so moved Hubert’s heart that he forswore his foul commission, preferring to brave the wrath of his ruthless master than to suffer the sting of conscience. But there were others with no bowels of compassion, and by their aid the lad was slain. How he actually died we do not know. Perhaps John inveigled the boy into a boat and there stabbed him and flung his body overboard, or perhaps he compassed his death by subtler means. Shakespeare tells us that, goaded to madness, the little prince leaped from the walls of his prison, crying,—

At any rate, the king you now see approaching has murder on his soul. But this is only the beginning of his villainy. Seven years ago the Archbishop of Canterbury went to his rest, and the monks of the cathedral elected another and sent him to Rome for his pall. John chose for the high office a minion of his own, “a servant of Mammon, and an evil shepherd that devoured his own sheep.” Pope Innocent, the proudest and most powerful man who ever wore the triple crown, set both candidates aside and appointed Stephen Langton, a wise and pious Englishman, against whom no word of scandal could be breathed. But John would have none other but his own nominee. He defied the Pope, and then the thunders of Rome were heard in the land. For the king’s sins a religious boycott was imposed upon the people.

The most dreaded terror in the Papal armoury—an interdict—was placed on the land. The churches were closed, no bell rang for prayers, all rites were withheld from the people, and even the dead lay in unconsecrated ground. But John was not yet brought to his knees; he seized the goods and lands of the Church, and then Innocent in wrath cast him out of its pale. Still John was unsubdued; he plundered the Church even more remorselessly.

He treated the Jews as a money-sucking sponge, squeezing them by every conceivable cruelty until they gave up their wealth. One rich Jew, so the story goes, was forced to disgorge by the simple process of having a tooth drawn every day until he had to choose between his remaining molars and his money bags. Others were starved in cages fastened to castle walls until their spirit of resistance was broken.

Military success did not fail the wicked king at this crisis. He compelled William the Lion of Scotland to do homage and pay heavy tribute, and he did the only really good work of his life in Ireland. From that country, which had been destined as his principality, John had been driven in the lifetime of his father by an onslaught of the Irish chiefs, whom he had abominably insulted and goaded into rebellion. Now he returned, and made short work of them and of the quarrelsome Anglo-Normans. He pacified the distracted land, made good laws, appointed capable officers, and sailed home in triumph. Then he turned his victorious arms against his son-in-law, Llewellyn, and forced the Welsh prince to do homage in the midst of his mountain fastnesses. And all the time John snapped his fingers at the Pope.

Innocent’s patience being now well-nigh exhausted, he sent to England his legate Pandulf, who solemnly declared John’s subjects free of their oath of fealty. But most of the nobles and many of the more worldly clergy still stuck to John, and his hired troops feared neither Pope nor devil. So John still held out, and even began to win the goodwill of his subjects by regulating the seaport trade, and by pardoning offenders against the barbarous forest laws of the time. Now came the Pope’s final sentence—John was to be hurled from the throne, and another and a worthier king should reign in his stead.

Philip of France was chosen to carry out the decree, and speedily he mustered an army for the venture. On all hands foes arose, and though the English barons and people were quite ready to fight for their king, John was for the first time thoroughly frightened. He feared to die outside the Church, and he was terrified by a monkish prophecy that he should lose his crown ere next Ascension Day. So he begged forgiveness of Innocent, knelt before Pandulf, and gave up his kingdom, which he received back on promise of amendment and a yearly tribute as vassal of the Pope. The anger of the English people at this base act knew no bounds. “He has become the Pope’s man,” they sneered; “he is no longer a king, but a slave.” Still more angry did they become when John sent an expedition to France, which, after capturing Philip’s fleet and burning his stores, was hopelessly beaten and driven back to England.

Many of the barons had refused to join this ill-fated expedition, and now John began to punish them. This was the last straw. They met in wrath, and Stephen Langton showed them the charter which Henry the First had granted to his people one hundred years before. The barons, utterly disgusted with John and all his works, now knelt before the high altar of St. Edmund’s minster and swore that they would make the king put his seal to a similar charter, even if they had to plunge the land in civil war. They girded on their armour, and under Robert Fitzwalter, “marshal of the army of God and of holy Church,” marched on London, where the citizens threw open the gates to receive them. “These articles,” cried the king, when they were presented to him, “are pure foolishness. Why do they not ask me for the kingdom at once? I will never give them such freedom as would make me their slave.” Brave words these, but when John perceived that all his knights but seven had deserted him he saw that he had no alternative but to yield.

And now let us turn again to the scene on the little island in the Thames. John has ascended his throne, and, holding the sword of state in his hand, battles hard with the fierce rage that is gnawing in his heart. Now he must repress his feelings, but to-night he will give them full fling. He will throw himself on the ground, gnash his teeth, and in a torrent of rage utter curses loud and deep. But here he must dissemble his wrath. Around him are the barons in full armour, their hearts as hard and their wills as unyielding as the mail which clothes them. A monk reads the charter, but the king is not listening. He is plotting and planning how to make these barons eat dirt for the insult they are putting upon him. By his side is Pandulf, urging him to defy them; but the king knows the resistless might of angry Englishmen better than any foreign churchman. He is in a trap; he must yield, but woe betide those who have made him do so!

The reading of the charter is finished, and John cries reluctantly, “Let it be sealed.” Then the charter is placed on the table in front of him, the wax is melted and placed on the parchment, the seal is screwed down, and the great charter becomes, for all time, the law of the land.

Now, what is this charter which has just been sealed? It is really a treaty of peace between king and people. “We will retain you as king,” they say, “only on condition that you swear to keep the law thus written down.” It is no new thing this law, but the old rights and the old liberties of the people collected together, and for the first time put into black and white. All the freemen of the land have united to extort this charter from the king, and the rights of all classes are laid down in it. Naturally, much of the charter deals with the rights of the barons and the clergy, for they have had the chief hand in securing it, but one-third of it contains promises and guarantees for the people in general. All praise to the barons! Unlike those of some foreign lands, they are not selfish now that they have got the upper hand of the king. Of course they take very good care of themselves, but to their credit be it said that they do not neglect the welfare of the nation at large.

In days to come men will regard this charter as the cure for every kind of royal lawlessness and tyranny. Well-nigh forty times will our kings be forced to sign it, and every time the national faith in the principles laid down in it will grow stronger and stronger. It will be greatly changed in form as the years run by, for new conditions will bring the need for new applications of its provisions. Nevertheless, the three main principles of the charter which you have witnessed in the making have been carried into every land where the British flag waves, and to every shore where the spirit of British freedom has penetrated. Let them be set down here before the scene closes and the pageant moves on:—The people can only be taxed with the consent of their representatives. There shall be justice for all, and it must not be sold, delayed, or refused. No freeman shall be taken, imprisoned, or in any way hurt, unless he be tried by his peers or equals according to the law.

In our days of widespread freedom these priceless principles seem to us the merest commonplaces, yet we must never forget that stout hearts, strong wills, and eternal vigilance were needed before they became the unchallenged possession of all who glory in the name of Briton.