These were the liberties which their ancestors had received by the free concession of a former king, and these the rights which their virtue was to force from the present, if (which God forbid!) they should find it necessary to have recourse to such extremities.  The barons, transported to find an authentic instrument to justify their discontent and to explain and sanction their pretensions, covered the Archbishop with praises, readily confederated to support their demands, and, binding themselves by every obligation of human and religious faith, to vigor, unanimity, and secrecy, they depart to confederate others in their design.

This plot was in the hands of too many to be perfectly concealed; and John saw, without knowing how to ward it off, a more dangerous blow levelled at his authority than any of the former.  He had no resources within his kingdom, where all ranks and orders were united against him by one common hatred.  Foreign alliance he had none, among temporal powers.  He endeavored, therefore, if possible, to draw some benefit from the misfortune of his new circumstances:  he threw himself upon the protection of the Papal power, which he had so long and with such reason opposed.  The Pope readily received him into his protection, but took this occasion to make him purchase it by another and more formal resignation of his crown.  His present necessities and his habits of humiliation made this second degradation easy to the king.  But Langton, who no longer acted in subservience to the Pope, from whom he had now nothing further to expect, and who had put himself at the head of the patrons of civil liberty, loudly exclaimed at this indignity, protested against the resignation, and laid his protestation on the altar.

[Sidenote:  A.D. 1214.]

This was more disagreeable to the barons than the first resignation, as they were sensible that he now degraded himself only to humble his subjects.  They were, however, once more patient witnesses to that ignominious act,—­and were so much overawed by the Pope, or had brought their design to so little maturity, that the king, in spite of it, still found means and authority to raise an army, with which he made a final effort to recover some part of his dominions in France.  The juncture was altogether favorable to his design.  Philip had all his attention abundantly employed in another quarter, against the terrible attacks of the Emperor Otho in a confederacy with the Earl of Flanders.  John, strengthened by this diversion, carried on the war in Poitou for some time with good appearances.  The Battle of Bouvines, which was fought this year, put an end to all these hopes.  In this battle, the Imperial army, consisting of one hundred and fifty thousand men, were defeated by a third of their number of French forces.  The Emperor himself, with difficulty escaping from the field, survived but a short time a battle which entirely broke his strength.  So signal a success established the grandeur of France upon immovable foundations.  Philip rose continually in reputation and power, whilst John continually declined in both; and as the King of France was now ready to employ against him all his forces, so lately victorious, he sued, by the mediation of the Pope’s legate, for a truce, which was granted to him for five years.  Such truces stood in the place of regular treaties of peace, which were not often made at that time.