The Archbishop followed him, confronted him with the
liberties of his people, reminded him of his late oath, and threatened
to excommunicate every person who should obey him in his illegal
proceedings. The king, first provoked, afterwards terrified at this
resolution, forbore to prosecute the recusants.

The English barons had privileges, which they knew to have been
violated; they had always kept up the memory of the ancient Saxon
liberty; and if they were the conquerors of Britain, they did not think
that their own servitude was the just fruit of their victory. They had,
however, but an indistinct view of the object at which they aimed; they
rather felt their wrongs than understood the cause of them; and having
no head nor council, they were more in a condition of distressing their
king and disgracing their country by their disobedience than of applying
any effectual remedy to their grievances. Langton saw these
dispositions, and these wants. He had conceived a settled plan for
reducing the king, and all his actions tended to carry it into
execution. This prelate, under pretence of holding an ecclesiastical
synod, drew together privately some of the principal barons to the
Church of St. Paul in London. There, having expatiated on the miseries
which the kingdom suffered, and having explained at the same time the
liberties to which it was entitled, he produced the famous charter of
Henry the First, long concealed, and of which, with infinite difficulty,
he had procured an authentic copy. This he held up to the barons as the
standard about which they were to unite. These were the liberties which
their ancestors had received by the free concession of a former king,
and these the rights which their virtue was to force from the present,
if (which God forbid!) they should find it necessary to have recourse to
such extremities. The barons, transported to find an authentic
instrument to justify their discontent and to explain and sanction their
pretensions, covered the Archbishop with praises, readily confederated
to support their demands, and, binding themselves by every obligation of
human and religious faith, to vigor, unanimity, and secrecy, they depart
to confederate others in their design.

This plot was in the hands of too many to be perfectly concealed; and
John saw, without knowing how to ward it off, a more dangerous blow
levelled at his authority than any of the former. He had no resources
within his kingdom, wher