t the mighty undertaking ended in failure. Barbarossa perished in
the East, and the glory of his empire died with him. Richard and
Philip quarrelled about precedence, and the French King seized the
opportunity to return home, full of shrewd plans for the humbling of
his obnoxious vassal sovereign. Richard, left almost alone with his
dwindling plague-stricken forces, had finally to acknowledge the
hopelessness of the cause. His adventures have been made the theme of
many a romance. On his way home he was seized and imprisoned in
Germany, and this and his death soon after left the throne to his
brother John.

BEGINNINGS OF MODERN GOVERNMENT

Historians have united to pour upon John every species of opprobrium.
Certain it is that he secured his crown by evil means, that he sought
to protect it by falsity and treachery. But after all, his rival,
Philip Augustus, could be treacherous too, and the main difference
between them is that Philip defeated John. He wrenched from him
Normandy and many of John's other French provinces, so that the
dominions of the English kings were reduced to scarce half their
former compass. Hence the opprobrium on John.[5]

Heavy as the loss might seem, it proved in reality a blessing to the
English race. Forced to confine themselves to Great Britain, her kings
became truly English, instead of French--which they had been hitherto.
England ceased to be a mere appanage of Normandy, ruled by Norman
nobles. The Normans who had settled in the island became sharply
divided from those who remained in France, and Saxons and
English-Normans became firmly welded into a united race. This is what
England owes to John.

Moreover his tyranny and falsehood led the lower classes in his realm
to unite with the nobility against him. Thus the deepset class
distinction of feudal times between lord and serf, the owner and the
owned, became less marked in England than elsewhere in Europe. The
vast threefold struggle which had everywhere to be fought out between
kings, nobles, and commons was in England decided against the kings by
the union of the other two.

Their combined strength forced from John the Magna Charta, or Great
Charter, the foundation of modern government in England, though the
celebrated document granted no new privilege to lord or citizen or
peasant. It only confirmed on parchment the rights which John would
have denied them. So this also, the corner-stone of liberty, the
beginning of constitut