196.  Preliminary Meeting at St. Albans (1213).

In the summer (1213) a council was held at St. Albans, near London, composed of representatives from all parts of the kingdom.  It was the first assembly of the kind on record.  It convened to consider what claims should be made on the King in the interest of the nobles, the clergy, and the people at large.  A few weeks later they met again, at St. Paul’s in London.

The deliberations of the assembly took shape probably under Archbishop Langton’s guiding hand.  He had obtained a copy of the charter granted by Henry I (S135).  This was used as a model for drawing up a new one of similar character, but in every respect fuller and stronger in its provisions.

197.  Battle of Bouvines; Second Meeting of the Barons (1214).

John foolishly set out for the Continent, to fight the French at the same time that the English barons were preparing to bring him to terms.  He was defeated in the decisive battle of Bouvines, in the north of France, and returned to England crestfallen (1214), and in no condition to resist demands at home.  Late in the autumn the barons met in the abbey church of Bury St. Edmunds, in Suffolk, under their leader, Robert Fitz-Walter, of London.  Advancing one by one up the church to the high altar, they solemnly swore that they would oblige John to grant the new charter, or they would declare war against him.

198.  The King grants the Charter, 1215.

At Easter (1215) the same barons, attended by two thousand armed knights, met the King at Oxford and made known their demands.  John tried to evade giving a direct answer.  Seeing that was impossible, and finding that the people of London were on the side of the barons, he yielded and requested them to name the day and place for the ratification of the charter.

“Let the day be the 15th of June, the place Runnymede,"[1] was the reply.  In accordance therewith, we read at the foot of the shriveled parchment preserved in the British Museum, “Given under our hand...in the meadow called Runnymede, between Windsor and Staines, on the 15th of June, in the seventeenth year of our reign.”

[1] Runnymede:  about twenty miles southwest of London, on the south bank of the Thames, in Surrey.

199.  Terms and Value of the Charter, 1215; England leads in Constitutional Government.

This memorable document was henceforth known as the Magna Carta,[2] or the Great Charter,—­a term used to emphatically distinguish it from all previous and partial charters.

[2] Magna Carta:  Carta is the spelling in the medieval Latin of this and the preceding charters. (See the Constitutional Documents in the Appendix, p. xxix.)

It stipulated that the following grievances should be redressed:  First, those of the Church; secondly, those of the barons and their vassals or tenants; thirdly, those of citizens and tradesmen; fourthly, those of freemen and villeins or serfs (SS113, 150).