sis to which events had so long been
drifting. The victory at Bouvines gave strength to his opponents. The
open resistance of the northern barons nerved the rest of their order to
action. The great houses who had cast away their older feudal traditions
for a more national policy were drawn by the crisis into close union with
the families which had sprung from the ministers and councillors of the
two Henries. To the first group belonged such men as Saher de Quinci, the
Earl of Winchester, Geoffrey of Mandeville, Earl of Essex, the Earl of
Clare, Fulk Fitz-Warin, William Mallet, the houses of Fitz-Alan and Gant.
Among the second group were Henry Bohun and Roger Bigod, the Earls of
Hereford and Norfolk, the younger William Marshal, and Robert de Vere.
Robert Fitz-Walter, who took the command of their united force,
represented both parties equally, for he was sprung from the Norman house
of Brionne, while the Justiciar of Henry the Second, Richard de Lucy, had
been his grandfather. Secretly, and on the pretext of pilgrimage, these
nobles met at St. Edmundsbury, resolute to bear no longer with John's
delays. If he refused to restore their liberties they swore to make war
on him till he confirmed them by Charter under the king's seal, and they
parted to raise forces with the purpose of presenting their demands at
Christmas. John, knowing nothing of the coming storm, pursued his policy
of winning over the Church by granting it freedom of election, while he
embittered still more the strife with his nobles by demanding scutage
from the northern nobles who had refused to follow him to Poitou. But the
barons were now ready to act, and early in January in the memorable year
1215 they appeared in arms to lay, as they had planned, their demands
before the king.

[Sidenote: John deserted]

John was taken by surprise. He asked for a truce till Easter-tide, and
spent the interval in fevered efforts to avoid the blow. Again he offered
freedom to the Church, and took vows as a Crusader against whom war was a
sacrilege, while he called for a general oath of allegiance and fealty
from the whole body of his subjects. But month after month only showed
the king the uselessness of further resistance. Though Pandulf was with
him, his vassalage had as yet brought little fruit in the way of aid from
Rome; the commissioners whom he sent to plead his cause at the
shire-courts brought back news that no man would help him against the
charter that the