of the
older charters were exchanged for precise and elaborate
provisions. The Great Charter marks the transition from the
age of traditional rights to the age of written legislation,
of parliaments and statutes, which was soon to come."

King John of England, although compelled to submit to the
loss of his French provinces in 1204, never after lost sight
of plans for the renewal of the war with France. A bitter
controversy with Pope Innocent III began over an election
for the archbishopric of Canterbury, and resulted in a bull
deposing John, 1212, with a command to Philip of France to
execute the deposition. John made terms with the Pope by
agreeing to hold his kingdom in fief from the pontiff, and
to pay an annual tribute of one thousand marks (1213).

John then invaded France, in alliance with Otho IV, Emperor
of the Holy Roman Empire, and others, but was defeated at
Bouvines, near Lille, 1214. This ended John's endeavors to
recover his lost power in France, and he could only think
henceforth of ruling peaceably his own kingdom and
preserving, to his own advantage, his now close connection
with the Pope. But although the English King's reign had
been full of unfortunate events, the last and most grievous
of his trials still awaited him, and "he was destined to
pass through a series of more humiliating circumstances than
had ever yet fallen to the lot of any other monarch."

Under the feudal law of William the Conqueror, the ancient
liberties of the Anglo-Saxons were greatly curtailed; in
fact, the whole English people were reduced to a state of
vassalage, which for the majority closely bordered upon
actual slavery. Even the proud Norman barons themselves
submitted to a kingly prerogative more absolute than was
usual in feudal governments. A charter of comparative
liberality had been granted by Henry I, renewed by Stephen,
and confirmed by Henry II, but had never, either in letter
or spirit, been made effective. And now came the great
crisis in which the matters at issue--first between the King
and his barons, but ultimately between the Grown and the
subjects at large--were to be adjusted. The event was
hastened by the exactions and impositions of John himself,
and by personal as well as official conduct which rendered