[Sidenote:  Stephen Langton]

But it was not in Geoffry Fitz-Peter that English freedom was to find its champion and the baronage their leader.  From the moment of his landing in England Stephen Langton had taken up the constitutional position of the Primate in upholding the old customs and rights of the realm against the personal despotism of the kings.  As Anselm had withstood William the Red, as Theobald had withstood Stephen, so Langton prepared to withstand and rescue his country from the tyranny of John.  He had already forced him to swear to observe the laws of Edward the Confessor, in other words the traditional liberties of the realm.  When the baronage refused to sail for Poitou he compelled the king to deal with them not by arms but by process of law.  But the work which he now undertook was far greater and weightier than this.  The pledges of Henry the First had long been forgotten when the Justiciar brought them to light, but Langton saw the vast importance of such a precedent.  At the close of the month he produced Henry’s charter in a fresh gathering of barons at St. Paul’s, and it was at once welcomed as a base for the needed reforms.  From London Langton hastened to the king, whom he reached at Northampton on his way to attack the nobles of the north, and wrested from him a promise to bring his strife with them to legal judgement before assailing them in arms.  With his allies gathering abroad John had doubtless no wish to be entangled in a long quarrel at home, and the Archbishop’s mediation allowed him to withdraw with seeming dignity.  After a demonstration therefore at Durham John marched hastily south again, and reached London in October.  His Justiciar at once laid before him the claims of the Councils of St. Alban’s and St. Paul’s; but the death of Geoffry at this juncture freed him from the pressure which his minister was putting upon him.  “Now, by God’s feet,” cried John, “I am for the first time King and Lord of England,” and he entrusted the vacant justiciarship to a Poitevin, Peter des Roches, the Bishop of Winchester, whose temper was in harmony with his own.  But the death of Geoffry only called the Archbishop to the front, and Langton at once demanded the king’s assent to the charter of Henry the First.  In seizing on this charter as a basis for national action Langton showed a political ability of the highest order.  The enthusiasm with which its recital was welcomed showed the sagacity with which the Archbishop had chosen his ground.  From that moment the baronage was no longer drawn together in secret conspiracies by a sense of common wrong or a vague longing for common deliverance:  they were openly united in a definite claim of national freedom and national law.

[Sidenote:  Bouvines]