political measure its success was immediate and complete.  The French army at once broke up in impotent rage, and when Philip turned on the enemy John had raised up for him in Flanders, five hundred English ships under the Earl of Salisbury fell upon the fleet which accompanied the French army along the coast and utterly destroyed it.  The league which John had so long matured at once disclosed itself.  Otto, reinforcing his German army by the knighthood of Flanders and Boulogne as well as by a body of mercenaries in the pay of the English king, invaded France from the north.  John called on his baronage to follow him over sea for an attack on Philip from the south.

[Sidenote:  Geoffry Fitz-Peter]

Their plea that he remained excommunicate was set aside by the arrival of Langton and his formal absolution of the king on a renewal of his coronation oath and a pledge to put away all evil customs.  But the barons still stood aloof.  They would serve at home, they said, but they refused to cross the sea.  Those of the north took a more decided attitude of opposition.  From this point indeed the northern barons begin to play their part in our constitutional history.  Lacies, Vescies, Percies, Stutevilles, Bruces, houses such as those of de Ros or de Vaux, all had sprung to greatness on the ruins of the Mowbrays and the great houses of the Conquest, and had done service to the Crown in its strife with the older feudatories.  But loyal as was their tradition they were English to the core; they had neither lands nor interest over sea, and they now declared themselves bound by no tenure to follow the king in foreign wars.  Furious at this check to his plans John marched in arms northwards to bring these barons to submission.  But he had now to reckon with a new antagonist in the Justiciar, Geoffry Fitz-Peter.  Geoffry had hitherto bent to the king’s will; but the political sagacity which he drew from the school of Henry the Second in which he had been trained showed him the need of concession, and his wealth, his wide kinship, and his experience of affairs gave his interposition a decisive weight.  He seized on the political opportunity which was offered by the gathering of a Council at St. Albans at the opening of August with the purpose of assessing the damages done to the Church.  Besides the bishops and barons, a reeve and his four men were summoned to this Council from each royal demesne, no doubt simply as witnesses of the sums due to the plundered clergy.  Their presence however was of great import.  It is the first instance which our history presents of the summons of such representatives to a national Council, and the instance took fresh weight from the great matters which came to be discussed.  In the king’s name the Justiciar promised good government for the time to come, and forbade all royal officers to practise extortion as they prized life and limb.  The king’s peace was pledged to those who had opposed him in the past; and observance of the laws of Henry the First was enjoined upon all within the realm.