Richardson, Oliver Huntington: The national movement in the reign of Henry III. and its culmination in the barons' war: erster Theil (Heidelberg, 1897)

PART I INTRODUCTION: PRIMARY FORCES

13

popular life and crystallized custom can possess. It
was too complete a system for the national incom-
pleteness. The reigns of John and Henry III. cannot
be logically separated ; the great problem of each was
the same. The growing nation had to grow into a
national form of government, and the only government
possible for a reviving Anglo-Saxon community was a
free one. This made the reign of Henry III. an epit-
ome of English history. A conflict, then, between the
royal power and popular liberty was inevitable; John's
conduct hastened it. Both sides sought to strengthen
themselves by alliances, and in the character of these
alliances as well as in the conduct of the struggle, the
character of the reign of Henry III. was already fore-
shadowed.
Since John and Innocent had united in the consecra-
tion of Peter the Poitevin to the See of Winchester,
they had been at variance till May 15, 1213. At that
time in dire distress, John took a step which, while it
left no permanent mark upon the Englisli constitution,
was of paramount importance throughout the reign of
Henry III. Because he had offended God and Holy
Church so deeply as to be greatly in need of the divine
•mercy, and because no other sign of repentance save
the humiliation of himself and his kingdom was
adequate to the occasion, — such is the tenor of the
document,1 — John, led by- the inspiration of the Holy
Ghost, not constrained by force nor driven by fear, but

1 Rymer's Foedera, I., pp. 111, 112. Sel. Chart., pp. 284-286.