the lawful judgment of his peers,
or by the law of the land. To none will we sell or deny or delay right
or justice." It was a good security if it could be maintained, but it
would avail nothing against a king who was willing and able to use
force to set up the old tyranny once more. In the first place John
must dismiss all his foreign mercenaries. So little, however, was John
trusted that it was thought necessary in the second place to establish
a body of twenty-five--twenty-four barons and the Mayor of
London--which was to guard against any attempt of the king to break
his word. If John infringed upon any of the articles of the Charter
the twenty-five, with the assistance of the whole community of the
kingdom, had the right of distraining upon the king's lands till
enough was obtained to make up the loss to the person who had suffered
wrong. In other words, there was to be a permanent organisation for
making war upon the king.

17. =War between John and the Barons. 1215--1216.=--John waited for
the moment of vengeance. Not only did he refuse to send his
mercenaries away, but he sent to the Continent for large
reinforcements. Pope Innocent declared the barons to be wicked rebels,
and released John from his oath to the Great Charter. War soon broke
out. John's mercenaries were too strong for the barons, and in the
beginning of =1216= almost all England with the exception of London
had been overrun by them. Though the Pope laid London under an
interdict, neither the citizens nor the barons paid any attention to
it. They sent to Louis, the eldest son of Philip of France, to invite
him to come and be their king in John's stead. Louis was married to
John's niece, and might thus be counted as a member of the English
royal family. The time had not yet come when a man who spoke French
was regarded as quite a foreigner amongst the English barons. On May
21, =1216=, Louis landed with an army in the Isle of Thanet.

[Illustration: A silver penny of John, struck at Dublin.]

18. =Conflict between Louis and John. 1216.=--John, in spite of his
success, found himself without sufficient money to pay his
mercenaries, and he therefore retreated to Winchester. Louis entered
London in triumph, and afterwards drove John out of Winchester.
Innocent indeed excommunicated Louis, but no one took heed of the
excommunication. Yet John was not without support. The trading towns
of the East, who probably regarded Louis as a foreigner, took his