Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

216 MAGNA CHAETA.
he left England. It must be remembered that the
Archbishop of Canterbury was a legatus natus, and
that the claims of a legatus a latere might easily
clash with his privileges. This seems to have
happened with the legate Nicholas, who certainly
trusted the king overmuch, and misrepresented
Langton in consequence.1 Langton had come into
closer contact with King John than the Pope, and
it may be that in testing the vileness of the monarch
he somewhat forgot the principle of monarchy.
Stephen Langton had hardly taken possession of
his see before the barons began to show signs of
insubordination. The confusion and desolation of
the interdict had produced a corresponding anarchy
in the State. When the restraining arm of the
Church was relaxed, the tyranny of John had made
itself more sorely felt. There was now a reaction
throughout the land in the direction of liberty.
The Charta was to do for the civil constitution
what the election of Langton had done for the
spiritual. The one had been a protest against
royal nominations arbitrarily made : the other was
to represent the basis on which the British subject
founds his individual independence. If the barons*
had applied in the first instance to the Pope, they
would have accomplished a constitutional act in a
constitutional way. They wrenched the Charter of
Henry I. from the king, and thereby drew upon
themselves Innocent's excommunication. In his
1 Life of Stephen Langton, chop. v.