leave the estates without permission. The bishops and the lords met together from time to time to confer in regard to the affairs of the country, and to make such laws as they deemed best. The common people, however, had no voice in making these laws, and were little better than serfs or slaves.

In 1066 the Normans conquered the country, and William the Conqueror, Duke of Normandy, became King of England. William did not claim to be king wholly by right of conquest, but he summoned the lords of the manors to meet him, and then asked them to elect him king. Most of them complied with his request, took the oath of fealty, and received permission from the newly elected king to retain possession of their lands on the payment of a sum of money. The people of those days believed in feudalism, that is, that all the land belonged to the king, and that it was his privilege to dispose of it as he saw fit. In accordance with the English law and belief that all the land belonged to the king, William now seized all the estates of those who would not acknowledge him king, and distributed them among his Norman followers on condition that they should render him such military service as he demanded. He also required not only the lords, but all the tenants on the estates of the lords, to take the oath of loyalty to him personally. Bareheaded, without arms, and on bended knees, his subjects placed their hands in his and solemnly swore: "I become liege-man of yours for life and limb and earthly regard, and I will keep faith and

loyalty to you for life and death." Then the king sealed the oath with a kiss of acceptance.

King William's power was absolute. He made all the laws, levied taxes, and punished and imprisoned his subjects as he saw fit. Although arbitrary and severe, his rule was just. But the bishops and the lords, who before the Conquest had exercised a voice in the government, were dissatisfied with a ruler who possessed such absolute power. Then there began a long struggle, lasting for more than seven centuries, between the people and the king. The kings, for the most part, contended for the right of governing as they wished, while the people with their ever-growing love of liberty and freedom of government demanded the right to make the laws which they must obey.

The rule of William II, the son and successor of William the Conqueror, was so unjust and tyrannical that there was much rejoicing when he was found, his heart pierced by an arrow, in the New Forest which his father had created. Determined not to be ruled again by a monarch with such great power, the bishops and lords compelled Henry I, another son of William the Conqueror, on his accession to the throne in 1101, to issue a Charter of Liberties to the nation. This charter was an agreement or promise on the part of the king that he would grant his subjects good government. He agreed that they should enjoy all their ancient rights and liberties, and promised to reform the many abuses which had come in during the reign of his

Influence of the Crusades

King JohnMagna Charta.

brother. The important thing to be remembered about the Charter of Liberties is that it really granted equal rights to all freemen.

The Crusades exerted a powerful influence in securing liberty for the people. When it was desired to raise money to carry on an expedition to the Holy Land, the kings sold certain rights of selfgovernment to the large cities, and the lords allowed their retainers to buy the land on which they lived, so that when the crusades were over there was a multitude of small landowners in the kingdom. This change in the ownership of land was destined to prove an important factor in securing to the people freedom of government, for all the landowners were interested in maintaining the ancient rights of property owners, and in acquiring additional rights which the love of liberty prompted.

King John, the great grandson of Henry I, was a heartless, brutal monarch who cared nothing whatever for the welfare of his subjects. He denied the right of the Church to appoint its officers and to enjoy the use of its property. He oppressed the barons by his heavy extortions of money, violated the charters which had been granted to London and other large cities; compelled merchants to pay large sums of money for the privilege of carrying on their business, and even deprived the poor workmen of the tools by which they gained a livelihood when they could not pay the money he demanded. He threw men into prison without reason, and refused to grant them a trial. In short, he refused abso

lutely to regard as sacred any of the rights and privileges which the people had come to consider their own. When he died, the most his subjects. could say of him was that there had passed away “a knight without honor, a king without justice, and a Christian without faith."

Charta.

King John's injustice and oppression finally be- Magna came so unbearable that his subjects were driven to rebellion. Stephen Langton, the archbishop of Canterbury, the head of the Church in England, called a meeting of the clergy, the barons, and the leading men of the country, to protest against John's grievous abuse of the kingly power. The archbishop brought forth the old "Charter of Liberties" granted by Henry I a century before, and all present swore an oath that they would demand and maintain the rights granted by this ancient document. The barons then made war on King John, and on the plains of Runnymede, an island in the Thames River a few miles below London, on June 15, 1215, forced him to sign a new agreement called Magna Charta, or the Great Charter.

sions of

Magna

Most of the sixty-three provisions of Magna ProviCharta relate to abuses of the time, and have now become obsolete. Three of its provisions, however, charta. are of the utmost importance in the history of English liberties:

(1) No taxes (except in three cases especially men-
tioned) were to be levied except by the con-
sent of the general council of the kingdom.
(2) No freeman was to be imprisoned or proceeded

Henry III. Beginning of

House of

against unless by the lawful judgment of his peers, or by the law of the land.

(3) Justice or right was not to be denied or sold to any man.

In these provisions of the Great Charter we have the first great step toward securing those rights of personal liberty which have been so highly prized and so carefully guarded by all English-speaking peoples. While these rights were obtained largely, if not wholly, by the insistence of the barons, yet the Great Charter marks the first time in English history that a compact had been made between the king and the people. It was a most important step toward securing national government.

King John's son and successor, Henry III, was weak, extravagant, and inefficient. The barons refused to grant the enormous sums of money which Commons. he demanded, and under the leadership of Simon de Montfort a new parliament was assembled in 1265. This parliament differed from all previous parliaments, for knights of the shires (counties) and citizens of the boroughs (towns) were summoned to meet with the bishops and the barons. For the first time the national council granted by the Magna Charta was truly national in character in that all classes of people were represented in the government. This parliament was the beginning of the House of Commons, which represents the common people as distinguished from the clergy and the nobility.