after the Reduction of the Castles that held out in John's Favour summoned a Parliament at Nottingham such as the Parliament was then on the Thirtieth of March 1194. Trigesima Die mensis Martii feria quarta Ricardus Rex Angliae celebravit primum Concilii sui diem apud Nottingham as R. Hoveden pag. 737. where were present Elianor the King's Mother the two Archbishops David the King of Scotland's Brother the Bishops and the Barons And on the Day following the King demanded Justice should be done him on his Brother John who against his Oath of Allegiance had seised on his Castles destroyed his Countries both at home and abroad and Leagued against him with the King of France his Enemy And it was adjudged that Earl John should be cited to appear within Forty Days and stand to the Law and that if he did not Judicaverunt Comitem Johannem demeruisse regnum saith Hoveden Ipsum Fratrem suum Rex exhaeredavit Annal. Waverl An. 1194. Omne jus pristinum honorem impensum solenni judicio Procerum suorum abjudicavit saith J. Brompton from W. Hemingford whom he constantly Copies and Cites by the Name of Walter de Giseburn pag. 1278. lin 19. Judicio Procerum omni honore privavit saith H. Knighton l. 2. pag. 2408. But the Annales De Margan put out by the most excellently Learned Dr. Gale in 1691 go to my thinking a great way farther than all the rest The Passage is somewhat long but remarkable enough to make you amends for the Patience of Reading it Thus then in the Year M C XC IX After Richard's Death John his Brother in the Octaves of Easter having entred upon the Dukedom of Normandy coming over into England was Crowned King on Ascension-Day at Westminster May 27. against the Judgment and Decree of the Archbishops Bishops Earls and Barons and all the rest of the Great Men of England which they had passed at Nottingham in the Presence of King Richard his Brother where for the Treason he had acted against the King and Kingdom in Confederacy with the King of France he was disinherited and depriv'd abjudicatus which I cannot construe better not only of all the Lands he had in England but also of all Honors which he might hope for or expect to have from the Crown of England It was also decreed that he should be summoned to appear in such a space of time within the King's Courts to answer and defend himself if he could upon the War and Treason aforesaid Raised and Committed whilst his Brother was abroad and detain'd in Germany but he came not himself nor sent any other to answer for him Upon which Three Earls his Peers were sent to the Court of France there to convict him of the same Treason but neither did he make his appearance there or answer for himself And yet against this Judgment and Decree he is Crowned King William de Breuse together with his Faction pressing instantly for his Coronation In which Coronation all that were concerned offended grievously as well because John had no Right to the Kingdom Arthur his elder Brother's Son being then alive as also that if he had been Heir of the Kingdom yet by and for the above repeated Treason he had been deprived and difinherited This is a famous Passage and makes very much for a Bill of Exclusion at least if I mistake not and there was so much in it that when the Pope's Legat was dissuading the King of France from sending his Son Lewis into England as the Barons and Great Men had by express Messengers desir'd him to do and told him England then was S. Peter's Patrimony by the Resignation of King John the King of France told him that England never was John's to give as well because no King can give away his Kingdom without their Consent as also because he had forfeited all Right to the Crown if Right he had had by his Treasons against Richard of which he stood Convict and had had Sentence passed upon him as a Traitor by Hugh de Pudsey Bishop of Durham Thus Matth. Westm. tho Matth. Paris represents it a little otherwise But tho the King and Parliament proceeded to an Act of Exclusion yet they put no one upon abjuring John by Name They thought it enough to secure the present King by an Oath of Allegiance and to put by John from succeeding him but no one ever was constrain'd to swear he never should nor ought to be King They hurt John as much as they could by freeing the Subject from swearing to him but they intended not to hurt the Subjects by compelling them to swear against him Methinks there is great deal of Difference betwixt these two Points and that 's the Use I would have you make of this long Story which I will conclude when I have added That tho John afterwards did actually succeed his Brother Richard tho Arthur had been declared Successor to Richard tho it was the Opinion of all the World both abroad and at home that Arthur was the undoubted Heir of the Crown tho many Nobles sided with him tho he claim'd the Crown himself openly and gave John abundance of Trouble and alarm'd him daily yet did John never attempt to get him abjured by the Nation nor to secure himself any other way than by the common Oath of Allegiance He afterwards caught him and in all likelyhood ordered him to be made away privately but that was nothing to the People of England He died 't is thought about 1203 but his Sister Ellinor commonly called The Damosel of Britanny lived till after 1240. Tho she undoubtedly was the Heiress of the Crown if the Nation had regarded the Lineal and immediate Succession as much in those as in these latter Days which it is manifest they did not The long and troublesome Reign of Henry the Third the Times of Edward the First and Second afford me nothing to my present purpose They had no Rivals or Competitors to fear nor consequently any occasion of securing themselves by any Oath of Abjuration When Edward the Third was Crowned King upon the Deposition of his Father tho Edmond of Kent and others attempted to deliver him from his Imprisonment and re-instate him again yet the young King sought not his Safety and Establishment by any Oath of Abjuration of his Father It was enough that the several Estates of the Kingdom had by Deputies appointed for the purpose solemnly renounced their Allegiance to him and chosen his Son to Reign in his stead and taken the usual Oath of Allegiance to him this was then esteemed sufficient Security for the young King without concerning the whole Kingdom in an Oath of Abjuration And this was the Case of Henry the Fourth when Richard the Second was deposed the Crown was entail'd by Parliament on him and his Sons but there was no Abjuring Richard by an Oath to be taken by the Subjects The Estates of the Realm Deposed him very solemnly
Hearts were with John he made his Peace with him upon the vile unworthy Terms of forsaking Arthur But this was not what John wanted which was his Dègradation and Removal to which the following Passage ministred occasion Geofry Archbishop of York was forbid for some cause or other by K. Richard to enter England in three Years space but he unmindful of the King's Command and some say of his own Oath resolved to take the opportunity of the King's Absence and enter on his Bishoprick which attempting to do at Dover he was watched by the Chancellor's Spies and taken from the Altar of a Church whither he fled for refuge and dragged from thence and carried and committed to the Constable of Dover Castle This made a great Noise you may be sure in those days and opened the Mouths of the Clergy with whose Cries Earl John fell in immediately tho no great Friend to Church-men who are even with him in most of their Histories and wrote to the Chancellor to set the Archbishop at Liberty who refusing to do it he raised a considerable Army and drove his Enemy to great Straits and at last suffered him to transport himself out of the Land having first in the Presence and with the Consent of many Bishops Judges and Great-men and the Citizens of London decreed that he was not fit to bear any Rule or live any longer in the Kingdom When this good Company was got together Earl John resolved they should not part without a Tast of his Intentions and therefore the same day both he and the Archbishop of Roan who was put into the Chancellor's place as one of the Administrators of the Kingdom and others of the King's Justices granted to the Citizens of London habere communam suam and again in the same Year John and the Archbishop of Roan with almost all the Bishops Earls and Barons swore they would most firmly and inviolably as long as it should please the King observe and keep communam illam The Glossary to the X. Scriptores interprets Communam by Association and Confederation as if it were that these Lords and great Folks took the Citizens of London into Council with them and made them join with them in passing their Decree and Sentence on the Chancellor They did indeed do so but this is not enough methinks I have the Authority of a most excellent skilled Person both in these and all other Learned Matters whatsoever that Communa signifies in the place Privileges and Immunities and by the Sense I believe we should all of us construe it so For by the Passage with its Circumstances it appears that there was a Combination of Lords and Bishops and the Citizens of London in favour of John against any other Successor And the Citizens of London on their part swore Faithful Service took the Oath of Fidelity to King Richard and his Heirs and engaged that if he died without Issue they would receive John for their Lord and King And thereupon sware Fidelity to him against all Men saving their Oath to Richard Radulph de Diceto and Joh. Bromton make no mention of these Londoners Swearing but Roger Hoveden does in his Annals pag. 702. who lived and wrote in King John's Days and to him I refer you if you please This makes me inclinable to interpret Communam by something that the Citizens of London liked because they seemed to do a very bold and an unjust thing in lieu of it They took an Oath of Fidelity to One who was neither Heir by God's nor by the Laws of the Land nor yet by Designation and Appointment of the King then living who was very angry at these Proceedings and spoke very hard Words of his Brother John and there is great Reason to believe these strange Doings as well as the Departure of his Enemy King Philip of France hastened his Return the sooner into England But in his Return he was unfortunately taken Prisoner by the Duke of Austria and delivered into the Emperor's Hands and there continued Sixteen or Eighteen Months This Opportunity his Brother John laid hold on and by the instigation of the French King opened his Purposes and sought the Crown sometimes giving out the King was dead and sometimes that the Emperor resolved never to let him go And some Historians tell us that the King of France and John made mighty Offers to the Emperor either to detain him or deliver him up into their Hands which he had much ado to resist But the Nobility opposed him constantly and kept their Faith inviolable to their King to their great Praise and however careless and injurious they had been with respect to Arthur's Right of Succession yet they were very bold and faithful to their present King in Possession insomuch that instead of delivering up the Kingdom and swearing Allegiance to him as he demanded they very vigorously besieged him and his in Windsor-Castle and forc'd him to surrender that and other Holds and fly the Kingdom which he did and betook himself to his old Friend the King of France to whom he became Liege-man and did Homage for Normandy which yet would not submit to John but declared it self for its old Master whom they hoped to see at home again and safe in a short time And so they did for Richard came and landed at Sandwich in Kent and was joyfully receiv'd of all his Subjects throughout the Kingdom excepting some few Places which held out for John which in a little time were reduc'd and taken into Mercy by the King who by the Advice of the Bishops was again Crown'd with great Pomp at Winchester This is a long History you will think tho I have greatly shortened it but whereto does it serve Why some have confounded these Two Attempts of John and made but One of them and some have only mentioned his Attempt during his Brother's Imprisonment which yet you see was a Second Undertaking in pursuance of the First which made way as he imagined for it The Use I make of it is this to shew you that John by this first Treasonable Attempt of causing People to swear Fidelity to him against the King's Will and without his Knowledge and when he was not so much as Presumptive Heir must make him justly liable both to the King's Anger and to the Punishment of the Laws of the Land but that his second Attempt upon the Crown made him undoubtedly a Traitor and not to be endur'd either by King or Subject I know not how a Subject can become more dangerous and to be suspected than by having once been sworn into the Succession without his Prince's Knowledge and Good Will and having afterwards demanded openly the Crown altho his King was then alive And sure his succeeding so well as he did the first time and his attempting it the second time must make him a dangerous Competitor to the King and fit to be excluded by an Oath of Abjuration But nothing of this was thought upon Richard
pardon It is only to my purpose to say that Stephen contented himself with the ordinary Oath of Allegiance tho Maud was his Competitor and put no Nobleman or Commoner upon adjuring her or hers by name tho he were sensible that they must prove continual Thorns in his side and upon those Apprehensions as soon as he was settled in his Throne he passed over with an Army into France with purpose only of subduing Geofry of Anjou her Husband prospexerat'enim saith Tho Wikes 1136 quod si Imperatrix prolem de corpore suo generaret bella sibi minime defutura knowing full well that if she had Children he must look for little quiet But Children she had and you know how troublesome this Woman with her Son and Brother Robert were to him for many Years the many Miserie 's this poor Kingdom endured under the time of their Dissensions for in most Wars a Country finds but little difference between Friends and Enemies and the Agreement made at last betwixt them I will not insist on any of these Matters King Stephen took all usual care to secure the Crown to himself and his Posterity but it went no farther than to take the common Oath of Allegiance to himself and in 1152 to cause the same to be taken to Eustace his Son For so Annales Waverleienses 1152 Apud Londoniam Eustachio Filio R. Stephani fide jurejurando Universi Comites Barones Angliae se subdiderunt He would have had him crowned but the Clergy by order of the Pope opposed it strongly and he could not carry his Point as Gervasius tells us in Stephano 1131. p. In the Year 1152 died Stephen's Wife and in 1153 Eustace his Son a stomachful young Prince so that Stephen consum'd almost with Care and Grief and finding himself decay and his Adversary young Henry daily increasing in Riches and the Favour of the People began to incline to Peace which was agreed upon you know on condition that Stephen should continue King during his natural Life and Henry to succeed him and that William Stephen's only remaining Son should be possessed of all his Father's Estate whilst a private Subject but he liv'd not long to enjoy it dying in King Henry's Service at the Siege of Tholouse in the Year 1159 Stephen himself went before him dying in the Year 1154. leaving Peace the greatest and most wanted Blessing to this distracted Kingdom Consider Sir I pray whether an Oath of Abjuration was not full as seasonable in this King Stephen's Case as it can possibly be in any others and then I will go on Henry II being possessed of the Throne took the usual Oath of Fidelity from his Subjects without any manner of Regard had to William Stephen's Son who served him four Years and died at last as I have said in 1159. He reigned thirty five years and endured great Troubles and Afflictions from an untoward Queen and most ungracious Children the Eldest of which called Henry sometimes called Secundus sometimes Tertius sometimes Junior and Minor he caused to be crowned King whilst himself lived and quickly found good reason to repent him of such favour But having no competitor for the Crown his Troubles are nothing to my purpose since he could have no occasion for an Oath of Abjuration and therefore I have done with him when I have observed to you that notwithstanding the Oath the Nation took in general to his Mother Maud her self yet Henry succeeded Stephen without any manner of notice taken of her Polydor Virgil makes her present at the Treaty of Agreement but mentions no Cession or yielding up her Right no Historian I have seen takes any notice of her at all and yet undoubtedly she took all those pains in her Wars with Stephen for her self and upbraided Stephen and all his Followers with Perjury and yet she appears no ways concerned in the Treaty nor makes any manner of Declaration that she absolved them of their Oaths to her or that she was willing they should transfer their Allegiance to her Son Perhaps they took these things for granted because she put in no new Claim at that time all that we know further of her is that she died as some say in the 13th or as others in the 14th Year of her Son Henry's Reign who died hlmself in 1189 and left his Crown and Kingdom uncontested to Richard I who was his Eldest Son then living He was a brave Prince and according to the superstitious humour of those times engaged in the Recovery of the Holy Sepulchre out of the hands of Infidels where he performed Wonders and was accounted one of the Religious Heroes of that Age. But certainly he was very ill paid at home for these his glorious Pains abroad by John his Brother Most of our common Historians are mistaken in representing these matters and confound Actions done at different times I shall take a little pains to set them in better order and that in short from Roger Hoveden Walt. Hemingford and John Brompton c. When Richard went into the East he left the Government of England in the hands of William Longchamp Lord Chancellor and Bishop of Ely who for ought appears managed it with great Fidelity to the King his Master but to the great dislike of John and his Adherents who made many grievous Complaints of his tyrannick Government and seem resolved to have him laid aside at any rate the thing that offended John at the bottom was this that the Chancellor being a Man of great Abilities and Power abetted and maintained the Right of Arthur of Brettany Son and Heir of Geofry elder Brother to John and sent underhand to the King of Scotland who was his great Uncle for his Protection and Assistance in case King Richard should do otherwise than well in the Holy-Land protesting moreover to him that by Letters directed to him from Sicily King Richard had appointed Arthur his Successor if he should die It is not very certain whether the Chancellor acted thus in favour of young Arthur out of a good Principle as knowing him the rightful Heir or with ambitious purpose of continuing in his great Authority and Regency as he was likely to do if a Child succeeded but whatever the Motive was to his asserting Arthur's Right his doing so must needs be enough to make Earl John his mortal Enemy The Chancellor was a warm and haughty Man and imprudently administred an Occasion of Commotion by commanding Girard de Camvilla to yield up to him the Castle of Lincoln who having had it committed to his care by the King refus'd to do it and immediately took part with John whose ambitious restless Temper took hold of this occasion to put himself in Arms and whilst the Chancellor was besieging Girard he seized on the two Castles of Nottingham and Tickill So that now they came to open Hostilities in which the Chancellor finding himself the weaker and knowing he had many Mens Persons about him whose