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18. JOHN, THE TRAITOR-KING (R. 1199—1216).

1. King Richard's lawful heir was his nephew Arthur; but Prince John had long determined to be king. All the time that Richard was fighting in the Holy Land, John was plotting against him with the King of France. When Richard was in prison, he offered to pay a very large sum of money each month so long as the king was kept in captivity; and now, directly he heard that King Richard was dead, John seized upon Arthur's territories in France, and then hastened to England and persuaded the English to crown him king.

2. Not long after, King John took Arthur prisoner, with all his bravest supporters. He fastened heavy chains upon them, and shut them up in his different castles. Many were starved to death in their dungeons, and Prince Arthur himself was never seen again. Some say that King John burnt out his nephew's eyes with a red-hot iron, and others that he stabbed him in the night and threw the body over into a river. All men were certain that by some foul means John had murdered Arthur, so that he might keep his dominions; and they hated the king for it and feared him.

3. So the people who lived in the French dominions which should have been Arthur's, rose against King John, and helped the King of France to drive him out. No man would fight for a traitor and a murderer like John. The great realm of his father Henry was

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broken to pieces, and John lost all his lands outside England.

4. At first the English had not known how bad a man they had accepted as their king; for he was full of deceit, and deceived them with his free, gay manners, as he had deceived his father. But John grew more and more lawless. He oppressed his subjects; he broke the laws; his vices and his cruelties became worse and worse; and at last the English people also made up their minds that if he would not mend his ways, he should rule over them no longer.

5. Before long John had a great quarrel with the Church and the Pope as to who should be Archbishop of Canterbury; and as the king would not yield, the Pope forbade all Christian men to hold communion with the king, or to serve him.

6. Then King John grew yet more angry with the Pope, and his heart grew harder than ever, and he took away the lands and the money of the priests and monks.

7. At last the Pope declared that John was deposed from his throne, and he summoned the King of France to conquer England, as he had conquered all the rest of John's dominions. Now, though the English had begun to hate John for his evil deeds, and all the trouble he had brought upon them, they were not going to allow the Pope to settle whether he should or should not be King of England. Still, John knew he deserved no help from them, and he began to fear that the French king would come and take away his kingdom and his life. So John thought it wisest to make friends with the Pope.

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He sent for the Pope's legate, or ambassador, and took off his crown and gave it into his hands, and threw himself down at the legate's feet, and promised to acknowledge the Pope as his lord, and to obey him in all things.

8. John thought all his troubles were over; but he was greatly mistaken. The barons of England were very angry with him for what he had done. They felt it a disgrace that the King of England should be called the vassal of the Pope; and they banded themselves together against the king to compel him to govern according to the ancient laws of England. So they wrote some of these laws out afresh, and added more laws to them which they thought good. And these were called the Great Charter. But King John was as obstinate with the barons as he had been with the Pope, and would not sign the Charter. So the barons gathered their followers, all wearing a white cross, to show that they were fighting in a holy cause, and they declared they would obey John no longer. Then the king grew frightened once more, and called the barons to him and signed the Great Charter in a field called Runnymead, near Windsor.

9. But when he came to himself he was very wroth, and began to plan how he might break his word with the barons; and he hired foreign soldiers to come over and force the English to submit to him.

10. Then the barons saw that they must fight John to the death. They armed all who would join them, and they sent word to the French king that if his son Louis would come to England with his army, and

would promise to govern lawfully, they would take him for their king instead of the traitor John.

11. So Louis came, and there was a terrible war in the land. John ravaged and burnt the land as if he had been one of the old Danes come again, and slew and tortured his own people. At last, one day, as the king was crossing the Wash with all his army, the tide rose suddenly, and all the king's treasure, and the provisions for his army, were swept away into the sea. The king himself escaped, but the fatigue and the vexation threw him into a fever, and he died in agony.

12. All England rejoiced at the news. Men thought no more of asking a king from France to reign over them, but crowned John's little son Henry, hoping they would find in him as good a king as his grandfather, after whom he was called. And they chose some of the wisest men in the kingdom to teach him how to govern rightly, and to obey the Great Charter, by which they had resolved that England should henceforth be governed.

19. SIMON DE MONTFORT (B. 1200; D. 1265).

1. So long as Henry III. followed the counsel of the Wise Men of the kingdom, and ruled according to the Great Charter, all went well, but when he grew to be a man he would listen to them no more. He invited his French relations over to England, and they all lived together in constant feasting and splen

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