nd Guienne declared in favor of
Arthur, on the principle of representation. Normandy was entirely for
John. In England the point of law had never been entirely settled, but
it seemed rather inclined to the side of consanguinity. Therefore in
England, where this point was dubious at best, the claim of Arthur, an
infant and a stranger, had little force against the pretensions of John,
declared heir by the will of the late king, supported by his armies,
possessed of his treasures, and at the head of a powerful party. He
secured in his interests Hubert, Archbishop of Canterbury, and
Glanville, the chief justiciary, and by them the body of the
ecclesiastics and the law. It is remarkable, also, that he paid court to
the cities and boroughs, which is the first instance of that policy: but
several of these communities now happily began to emerge from their
slavery, and, taking advantage of the necessities and confusion of the
late reign, increased in wealth and consequence, and had then first
attained a free and regular form of administration. The towns new to
power declared heartily in favor of a prince who was willing to allow
that their declaration could confer a right. The nobility, who saw
themselves beset by the Church, the law, and the burghers, had taken no
measures, nor even a resolution, and therefore had nothing left but to
concur in acknowledging the title of John, whom they knew and hated. But
though they were not able to exclude him from the succession, they had
strength enough to oblige him to a solemn promise of restoring those
liberties and franchises which they had always claimed without having
ever enjoyed or even perfectly understood. The clergy also took
advantage of the badness of his title to establish one altogether as ill
founded. Hubert, Archbishop of Canterbury, in the speech which he
delivered at the king's coronation, publicly affirmed that the crown of
England was of right elective. He drew his examples in support of this
doctrine, not from the histories of the ancient Saxon kings, although a
species of election within a certain family had then frequently
prevailed, but from the history of the first kings of the Jews: without
doubt in order to revive those pretensions which the clergy first set up
in the election of Stephen, and which they had since been obliged to
conceal, but had not entirely forgotten.

John accepted a sovereignty weakened in the very act by which he
acquired it; but he submitte