[Sidenote:  John yields]

But cling as such men might to John, they clung to him rather as mediators than adherents.  Their sympathies went with the demands of the barons when the delay which had been granted was over and the nobles again gathered in arms at Brackley in Northamptonshire to lay their claims before the King.  Nothing marks more strongly the absolutely despotic idea of his sovereignty which John had formed than the passionate surprise which breaks out in his reply.  “Why do they not ask for my kingdom?” he cried.  “I will never grant such liberties as will make me a slave!” The imperialist theories of the lawyers of his father’s court had done their work.  Held at bay by the practical sense of Henry, they had told on the more headstrong nature of his sons.  Richard and John both held with Glanvill that the will of the prince was the law of the land; and to fetter that will by the customs and franchises which were embodied in the barons’ claims seemed to John a monstrous usurpation of his rights.  But no imperialist theories had touched the minds of his people.  The country rose as one man at his refusal.  At the close of May London threw open her gates to the forces of the barons, now arrayed under Robert Fitz-Walter as “Marshal of the Army of God and Holy Church.”  Exeter and Lincoln followed the example of the capital; promises of aid came from Scotland and Wales; the northern barons marched hastily under Eustace de Vesci to join their comrades in London.  Even the nobles who had as yet clung to the king, but whose hopes of conciliation were blasted by his obstinacy, yielded at last to the summons of the “Army of God.”  Pandulf indeed and Archbishop Langton still remained with John, but they counselled, as Earl Ranulf and William Marshal counselled, his acceptance of the Charter.  None in fact counselled its rejection save his new Justiciar, the Poitevin Peter des Roches, and other foreigners who knew the barons purposed driving them from the land.  But even the number of these was small; there was a moment when John found himself with but seven knights at his back and before him a nation in arms.  Quick as he was, he had been taken utterly by surprise.  It was in vain that in the short respite he had gained from Christmas to Easter he had summoned mercenaries to his aid and appealed to his new suzerain, the Pope.  Summons and appeal were alike too late.  Nursing wrath in his heart, John bowed to necessity and called the barons to a conference on an island in the Thames, between Windsor and Staines, near a marshy meadow by the river side, the meadow of Runnymede.  The king encamped on one bank of the river, the barons covered the flat of Runnymede on the other.  Their delegates met on the 15th of June in the island between them, but the negotiations were a mere cloak to cover John’s purpose of unconditional submission.  The Great Charter was discussed and agreed to in a single day.

[Sidenote:  The Great Charter]