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

16

THE BARONS' WAR

CHAP. I

and such further assistance in the way of diplomacy
and excommunications as Rome's greatest pontiff could
afford in such a crisis. The English church was para-
lyzed by the suspension of the great archbishop,1 and
for many a long year it remained under the domina-
tion of papal emissaries. The result of -the struggle
between John and Innocent, the powers of despotism
on the one side, and the representatives of English
freedom on the other, need not detain us. Ultimately
young Henry was crowned, the Charters reconfirmed
by the king and Gualo, Louis of France expelled, and
under the healing policy of the great Earl Marshall
and Gualo, wisest of papal legates, the realm was
reduced to peace. But given the character of the
young king, the character of his reign was already
largely determined. Aliens were already in the land;
John's Charter to the church was in full force; his
oath of fealty to Rome had been renewed by Henry ;
the king was already a special object of papal regard
and under papal influence; the Great Charter existed
as the basic means for the preservation of national
liberty; and the national church, baronage, and people,
acting in unison, had achieved a triumph which— as an
historical fact — doubled in a certain sense the value
of the statute. Whatever the inadequacy of the Great
Charter, as a rigid constitution for a growing nation,
may have been, it certainly limited royal prerogative,
guaranteed national rights, and furnished standing-

1 Rymer, I., p. 139. Nov. 4, 1215.