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Contents

List of tables and figures

Note to the instructor
Note to the student
Acknowledgements
List of abbreviations used in examples
1 What is syntax?
1.1 Some concepts and misconceptions
1.1.1 What is the study of syntax about?
1.1.2 Language change
1.2 Use of linguistic examples
1.2.1 Why not just use examples from English?
1.2.2 How to read linguistic examples
1.3 Why do languages have syntax?
1.3.1 Word order
1.3.2 Promotion and demotion processes
1.3.3 All languages have structure
Further reading
Exercises
2 Words belong to different classes
2.1 Identifying word classes
2.1.1 How can we tell that words belong to different classes?
2.1.2 Starting to identify nouns, adjectives and verbs
2.1.3 An illustration: how do speakers of a language identify word classes?
2.2 Verbs
2.2.1 An introduction to verb classes
2.2.2 Verbs and their grammatical categories
2.3 Nouns
2.3.1 Semantic roles for noun phrases
2.3.2 Syntactic roles for noun phrases
2.3.3 Nouns and their grammatical categories
 2.3.4 Nouns, definiteness and determiners
2.4 Adjectives
2.4.1 Positions and functions of adjectives
2.4.2 Adjectives and intensifiers
2.4.3 Adjectives and their grammatical categories
2.4.4 Are adjectives essential?
2.5 Adverbs
2.5.1 Adverbs and adjectives
2.5.2 The adjunct function
2.6 Prepositions
2.6.1 Identifying prepositions in English
2.6.2 Postpositions
2.6.3 Grammatical categories for adpositions
2.7 Conclusion
Further reading
Exercises
3 Looking inside sentences
3.1 Finiteness and auxiliaries
3.1.1 Independent clauses
3.1.2 Finiteness
3.1.3 Main verbs and verbal auxiliaries
3.1.4 Ways to express the grammatical categories for verbs
3.1.5 Non-finite verbs
3.1.6 Co-ordination of clauses
3.1.7 Summary
3.2 Introduction to subordination
3.2.1 Complement clauses
3.2.2 Adjunct or adverbial clauses
3.2.3 Identifying subordinate clauses
3.2.4 Special properties of root clauses
3.2.5 Some cross-linguistic variation in subordination
3.2.6 Summary: properties of subordinate clauses and root clauses
3.3 Major cross-linguistic variations
3.3.1 The co-ordination strategy
3.3.2 Nominalization
3.3.3 Serial verbs
3.3.4 Summary
Further reading
 Exercises
4 Heads and their dependents
4.1 Heads and their dependents
4.1.1 What is a head?
4.1.2 The influence of heads on their dependents
4.1.3 Summary: the properties of heads
4.1.4 More about dependents: adjuncts and complements
4.1.5 More about verb classes: verbs and their complements
4.1.6 Other heads and their complements
4.1.7 Summary: the main properties of complements vs. adjuncts
4.1.8 Is the noun phrase really a determiner phrase?
4.1.9 Phrases within phrases
4.2 Where does the head occur in a phrase? Head-initial and head-final languages
4.2.1 Head-initial languages
4.2.2 Head-final languages
4.2.3 An exercise on head-initial and head-final constructions
4.3 Head-marking and dependent-marking languages
4.3.1 Definitions and illustrations: syntactic relationships between heads and dependents
4.3.2 Head adposition and its NP object
4.3.3 The clause: a head verb and the arguments of the verb
4.3.4 Head noun and dependent possessor NP
4.3.5 Head noun and dependent AP
4.3.6 An exercise on head-marking and dependent-marking
4.3.7 Some typological distinctions between languages
4.3.8 Summary
Further reading
Exercises
5 How do we identify constituents?
5.1 Discovering the structure of sentences
5.1.1 Evidence of structure in sentences
5.1.2 Some syntactic tests for constituent structure
5.1.3 Introduction to constituent structure trees
5.1.4 Summary
5.2 Relationships within the tree
5.3 Developing detailed tree diagrams and tests for constituent structure
5.3.1 Verb classes and constituent structure tests
5.3.2 The co-ordination test for constituency
 5.3.3 Do all languages have the same constituents?
5.3.4 An introduction to the bar notation
5.4 Summary
Further reading
Exercises
6 Relationships within the clause
6.1 Indicating grammatical relations in the clause
6.2 Order of phrases within the clause
6.2.1 Basic and marked orders
6.2.2 Statistical patterns
6.3 Case systems
6.3.1 Ways of dividing core arguments
6.3.2 Nominative/accusative systems
6.3.3 Ergative/absolutive systems
6.3.4 Splits in alignment systems I
6.3.5 Marked and unmarked forms
6.4 Agreement and cross-referencing
6.4.1 What does verb agreement involve?
6.4.2 Nominative/accusative agreement systems
6.4.3 Ergative/absolutive agreement systems
6.4.4 Split in alignment systems II
6.5 Split intransitive systems
6.6 Grammatical relations
6.6.1 Investigating core grammatical relations
6.6.2 Subjects: typical cross-linguistic properties
6.6.3 An examination of subjects in specific languages
6.6.4 Objects
6.7 Free word order: a case study
6.8 Summary
Further reading
Exercises
7 Processes that change grammatical relations
7.1 Passives and impersonals
7.1.1 The passive construction and transitive verbs
7.1.2 The impersonal construction
7.2 The antipassive
7.2.1 Basic facts
 7.2.2 Primary grammatical relations and grammatical pivots
7.3 The applicative construction
7.4 The causative construction
7.5 Summary
Further reading
Exercises
8 Wh-constructions: questions and relative clauses
8.1 Wh-questions
8.1.1 Languages with wh-movement
8.1.2 Languages with wh-in-situ wh-questions
8.1.3 Multiple wh-questions
8.2 Relative clauses
8.2.1 Relative clauses in English
8.2.2 Cross-linguistic variation in relative clauses
8.3 Focus movements and scrambling
8.4 Some conclusions
Further reading
Exercises
9 Asking questions about syntax
9.1 Syntactic description: what questions to investigate
9.2 A case study: grammatical sketch of Colloquial Welsh
9.3 Some questions concerning syntax
9.4 Last words: more syntax ahead

Sources of data used in examples

Glossary
References
Language index
Subject index
Tables and figures

TABLES
1.1 Present tense of French parler ‘to speak’
1.2 Glosses for person and number
4.1 Syntactic relationships between a head and dependent
6.1 The core arguments
6.2 The major case systems
7.1 Accusative and ergative alignment systems
7.2 Primary grammatical relations
9.1 Inflectional paradigm for the Welsh preposition wrth ‘at’
9.2 Inflectional paradigm for the past tense of the Welsh verb gweld ‘see’

FIGURES
6.1 The nominative/accusative grouping
6.2 The ergative/absolutive grouping
6.3 The split intransitive alignment system
Note to the instructor

Changes to the fifth edition

If you have used this textbook before, you will find that this new edition contains essentially
the same material as the fourThedition, but that every chapter has been significantly revised.
Chapter 6 has had the most changes. I hope to have improved the clarity of discussion and
level of explanation for all the most complex concepts that are introduced, and I have
attempted to anticipate more precisely the needs of the beginning student with no background
whatever in language studies. A number of new exercises have also been added to each
chapter, and some of the old ones removed, in cases where I felt that they didn’t work too
well. Please let me know if you find the changes helpful.
Sources of data used throughout the text of the chapters are generally given at the end of
the book, in order to keep the text clear, while the data used in the exercises are referenced in
each exercise.
As always, I’d be glad to hear from any instructors about the success or otherwise of any of
the changes I’ve made, and I’m also happy to receive data corrections and suggestions for
further improvements.
Note to the student

This book is an introduction to the major concepts and categories associated with the branch
of linguistics known as syntax. No prior knowledge is assumed, although it is assumed that
you will learn from each chapter, and assimilate much of the information in a chapter, before
reading further. However, I generally don’t expect you to learn what something means from a
single mention or from first discussion – instead, you will meet the same terms and concepts
on several different occasions throughout the book. The first mention of some concept might
be quite informal, wiThexamples just from English, and then later I will give the discussion a
broader perspective with illustrations from other languages. I use SMALL CAPITALS to introduce
technical terms and concepts: these can be found in the subject index at the back. I also use
small capitals to indicate any particularly important discussion or illustration of a term or
concept that you’ve already met earlier. It will probably help to look up in the index all the
previous mentions of this item, especially if you’re finding it hard to grasp.
Many of the example sentences used in the text are given as a phonetic transcription, for
instance when the language under discussion does not have a written form. Although you
don’t need to know how to pronounce the examples in order to understand the point being
made, you may well be interested in their pronunciation. If you’d like further information
about the various symbols used, I recommend that you consult the Phonetic symbol guide
(Pullum and Ladusaw 1996), for comprehensive details of phonetic symbols and their
pronunciation, or Davenport and Hannahs 2020 for general information on phonetics and
phonology.
You are invited to tackle exercises within the body of the text in each chapter; these in-text
exercises are in boxes, separated from the running text. The answers to these problems are
discussed in the text itself. If you attempt these exercises as you go along, they will certainly
help you to check that you’ve understood the section you’ve just finished reading. If you don’t
get the right answer, I recommend re-reading that section before reading further. There are
also checklists in each chapter that remind you of the main material covered. If you don’t feel
that you’ve taken the topics on board, you are recommended to revise them before moving on.
Additionally, there are exercises at the end of each chapter, for which I don’t provide
answers. If you are having real problems with the text, or want to discuss the exercises, please
email me and I will try to help by suggesting a strategy, but I won’t tell you the answers! For
that reason, students should ask their instructors to email. My email address is
[email protected].
I will also be happy to receive corrections to data or to claims I make about any language,
or further illustrations, or suggestions for new exercises.
Maggie Tallerman
Durham,
June 2019
Acknowledgements

Over the two decades or so since the first edition of this book was published, I have been
overwhelmed by the interest shown in the material it presents, and by the kindness of very
many people from around the world. I have received dozens of emails, oft en from complete
strangers, volunteering corrections to data, offering new data, suggesting ways in which the
book could be improved, discussing fine linguistic points at great length, offering to read
drafts of new material, and generally providing constructive criticism. Doubtless, I have
overlooked some of you in the list that follows; for this, I heartily apologize, and I stress my
genuine gratitude to all who helped make this fifth edition a better text. Many thanks, then, to
the following colleagues, friends and students whose real and virtual presence has helped so
much in the writing of all the editions of this textbook: Bashayer Alotaibi, Muteb Alqarni,
Abdelrahman Altakhaineh, Clayton Ashton, Seiki Ayano, Ute Bohnacker, Bob Borsley,
Siobhan Casson, Zedric Dimalanta, Joe Emonds, Tom Ernst, Abdelkader Fassi Fehri, Stuart
Forbes, Don Frantz, Samer Hanafiyeh, Mustafa Harb, Anders Holmberg, David Iorio, Chris
Johns, Andreas Kathol, Jagdish Kaur, Daniela Kolbe, Lan Yin Kong, Nedzad Leko, Joan
Maling, Anna Margetts, Jenny Marjoribanks, Roger Maylor, Jawzal Nechirvan, Sadat
Peyambar, Tenzin Rigzin, Caroline Gray Robinson, Stuart Payton Robinson, Catherine Rudin,
Elina Saieva, the late Anna Siewierska, the late Carlota S. Smith, Rex Sprouse, Siti Hamin
Stapa, Maite Taboada, Rebwar Tahir, Höski Thráinsson, Graham Thurgood, Antoine Trux, Ian
Turner, Robert D. Van Valin, Nigel Vincent, Emiel Visser, Stephen M. Wechsler, Ian Woo, Wim
van der Wurffand Monaliza Sarbini Zin. None of the above should be held responsible for any
remaining errors.
I also owe a great debt of thanks to the series editors, Bernard Comrie and Grev Corbett,
who have improved this work in immeasurable ways. I hope that this new edition will be of
credit to both these linguists, because their own work has inspired me throughout. Of course,
full credit for any shortcomings remains with the author.
Finally, especial thanks to my amazing husband, S. J. Hannahs, for massive support, both
practical and moral, for reading and commenting on draft s, and for generally putting up with
me during the preparation of this edition.
Abbreviations used in examples

1 first person
2 second person
3 third person
ABS absolutive
ACC accusative
APPLIC applicative
AUX auxiliary
CAUS causative
COMP complementizer
CONJ conjunction
DEF definite
DEF ART definite article
DEM demonstrative
DET determiner
ERG ergative
EXC exclusive
F, FEM feminine
FUT future tense
GEN genitive
IMPER imperative
IMPF imperfect (tense/aspect)
INC inclusive
INDEF indefinite
INDIC indicative mood
INFIN infinitive
INTRANS intransitive
LOC locative case, indicating a location or sometimes a recipient
M, MASC masculine
 NEG negative
NOM nominative
NONPAST nonpast tense
OBJ object (or object marker)
OBL oblique (case)
PAST past tense
PERF perfect (tense/aspect)
PERFCTV perfective (tense/aspect)
PL plural
PN proper noun marker
POSS possessive marker
PRED predicate marker
PRES present tense
PROG progressive
PRT particle
PUNC punctual (aspect)
QU question marker
RM relative marker
SEQ sequential
SG singular
SJTV subjunctive (mood)
SM subject marker
SU subject (or subject marker)
SUBORD.MARKER marker of subordination
TRANS transitive marker
 1
What is syntax?

1.1 SOME CONCEPTS AND MISCONCEPTIONS

1.1.1 What is the study of syntax about?

This book is about the property of human language known as syntax. ‘Syntax’ means
‘sentence construction’: how words group together to make phrases and sentences. Some
people also use the term GRAMMAR to mean the same as syntax, although most linguists follow
the more recent practice whereby the grammar of a language includes all of its organizing
principles: information about the sound system, about the form of words, how we adjust
language according to context, and so on; syntax is only one part of this grammar.
The term ‘syntax’ is also used to mean the study of the syntactic properties of languages. In
this sense it’s used in the same way as we use ‘stylistics’ to mean the study of literary style.
We’re going to be studying how languages organize their syntax, so the scope of our study
includes the classification of words, the order of words in phrases and sentences, the structure
of phrases and sentences, and the different sentence constructions that languages use. We’ll be
looking at examples of sentence structure from many different languages in this book, some
related to English and others not. All languages have syntax, though that syntax may look
radically different from that of English. My aim is to help you understand the way syntax
works in languages, and to introduce the most important syntactic concepts and technical
terms which you’ll need in order to see how syntax works in the world’s languages. We’ll
encounter many grammatical terms, including ‘noun’, ‘verb’, ‘preposition’, ‘relative clause’,
‘subject’, ‘nominative’, ‘agreement’ and ‘passive’. I don’t expect you to know the meanings of
any of these in advance. Oft en, terms are not formally defined when they are used for the
first time, but they are illustrated so you can understand the concept, in preparation for a
fuller discussion later on.
More complex terms and concepts (such as ‘case’ and ‘agreement’) are discussed more than
once, and a picture of their meaning is built up over several chapters. A glossary at the end of
the book provides definitions of important grammatical terms.
 To help you understand what the study of syntax is about, we first need to discuss some
things it isn’t about. When you read that ‘syntax’ is part of ‘grammar’, you may have certain
impressions which differ from the aims of this book. So first, although we will be talking
about grammar, this is not a DESCRIPTIVE GRAMMAR of English or any other language. Such
books are certainly available, but they usually aim to catalogue the regularities and
peculiarities of one language rather than looking at the organizing principles of language in
general. Second, I won’t be trying to improve your ‘grammar’ of English. A PRESCRIPTIVE
GRAMMAR (one that prescribes how the author thinks you should speak) might aim to teach
you where to use who and whom; or when to say me and Ash and when to say Ash and I; it
might tell you not to say different than or different to, or tell you to avoid split infinitives
such as to boldly go. These things aren’t on our agenda, because they’re essentially a matter of
taste – they are social, not linguistic matters.
In fact, as a linguist, my view is that if you’re a native speaker of English, no matter what
your dialect, then you already know English grammar perfectly. And if you’re a native
speaker of a different language, then you know the grammar of that language perfectly. By
this, I don’t mean that you know (consciously) a few prescriptive rules, such as those
mentioned in the last paragraph, but that you know (unconsciously) the much more
impressive mental grammar of your own language – as do all its native speakers. Although
we’ve all learnt this grammar, we can think of it as knowledge that we’ve never been taught,
and it’s also knowledge that we can’t take out and examine. By the age of around 7, children
have a fairly complete knowledge of the grammar of their native languages, and much of
what happens aft er that age is learning more vocabulary. We can think of this as parallel to
‘learning’ how to walk. Children can’t be taught to walk; we all do it naturally when we’re
ready, and we can’t say how we do it. Even if we come to understand exactly what muscle
movements are required, and what brain circuitry is involved, we still don’t ‘know’ how we
walk. Learning our native language is just the same: it happens without outside intervention
and the resulting knowledge is inaccessible to us.
Here, you may object that you were taught the grammar of your native language. Perhaps
you think that your parents set about teaching you it, or that you learnt it at school. But this is
a misconception. All normally developing children in every culture learn their native
language or languages to perfection without any formal teaching. Nothing more is required
than the simple exposure to ordinary, live, human language within a society. To test whether
this is true, we just need to ask if all cultures teach their children ‘grammar’. Since the answer
is a resounding ‘no’, we can be sure that all children must be capable of constructing a mental
grammar of their native languages without any formal instruction. Most linguists now believe
that, in order to do this, human infants are born pre-programmed to learn language, in much
the same way as we are pre-programmed to walk upright. All that’s needed for language to
emerge is appropriate input data – hearing language (or seeing it; sign languages are full
languages too) and taking part in interactions within the home and the wider society.
So if you weren’t taught the grammar of your native language, what was it you were being
taught when your parents tried to get you not to say things like I ain’t done nowt wrong, or
He’s more happier than what I am, or when your school teachers tried to stop you from using
a preposition to end a sentence with? (Like the sentence I just wrote.) Again, consider learning
to walk. Although children learn to do this perfectly without any parental instruction, their
parents might not like the way the child slouches along, or scuffs the toes of their shoes on the
ground. They may tell the child to stand up straight, or to stop wearing out their shoes. It’s
not that the child’s way doesn’t function properly, it just doesn’t conform to someone’s idea of
what is aesthetic, or classy. In just the same way, some people have the idea that certain forms
of language are more beautiful, or classier, or are simply ‘correct’. But the belief that some
forms of language are better than others has no linguistic basis. Since we oft en make social
judgements about people based on their accent or dialect, we tend to transfer these
judgements to their form of language. We may then think that some forms are undesirable,
that some are ‘good’ and some ‘bad’. For a linguist, though, dialectal forms of a language
don’t equate to ‘bad grammar’.
Again, you may object here that examples of NON-STANDARD English, such as those italicized
in the last paragraph, or things like We done it well good, are sloppy speech, or perhaps
illogical. This appeal to logic and precision makes prescriptive grammar seem to be on a
higher plane than if it’s all down to social prejudice. So let’s examine the logic argument more
closely, and see if it bears scrutiny. Many speakers of English are taught that ‘two negatives
make a positive’, so that forms like (1) ‘really’ mean I did something wrong:
(1) I didn’t do nothing wrong.

Of course, this isn’t true. First, a speaker who uses a sentence like (1) doesn’t intend it to mean
I did something wrong. Neither would any of their addressees, however much they despise the
double negative, understand (1) to mean I did something wrong. Second, there are languages
such as French and Breton which use a double negative as STANDARD, not a dialectal form, as
(2) illustrates:1

Example (2) shows that in Standard French the negative has two parts: in addition to the little
negative word ne there’s another negative word jamais, ‘never’. Middle English (the English
of roughly 1100 to 1500) also had a double negative. Ironically for the ‘logic’ argument, the
variety of French that has the double negative is the most formal and prestigious variety,
whereas colloquial French typically drops the initial negative word.
 Another non-standard feature of certain English dialects which doesn’t conform to
prescriptive notions is illustrated in (3), from a Northern (British) English dialect:
(3) I aren’t going with you.

Here, the logic argument runs like this: you can’t say * I are not (the star or asterisk is a
convention used in linguistics to indicate an impossible sentence), so the contracted form I
aren’t must be wrong too. It’s true that speakers who accept (3) don’t ever say I are not. But
the argument is flawed: standard English is just as illogical. Look how the statement in (4a) is
turned into a question in (4b):

Example (4) does not conform to the usual rules of English grammar, which form questions by
inverting the word order in I can’t to give can’t I, and I should to give should I, and so on.
Given these rules, the ‘logically’ expected form in (4b) would be amn’t I (and in fact this form
is found in some dialects). If the standard English in (4) fails to follow the usual rules, then we
can hardly criticize (3) for lack of logic. And since aren’t I is OK, there’s no logical reason for
dismissing I aren’t. The dialects that allow either I aren’t or amn’t I could actually be
considered more logical than standard English, since they follow the general rule, whilst the
standard dialect, in (4), has an irregularity.
It’s clear, then, that socially stigmatized forms of language are potentially just as ‘logical’ as
standard English. Speakers of non-standard dialects are, of course, following a set of mental
rules, in just the same way that speakers of the most prestigious dialects are. The various
dialects of a language in fact share the majority of their rules, and diverge in very few areas,
but the extent of the differences tends to be exaggerated because they arouse such strong
feelings. In sum, speakers of prestige dialects may feel that only their variety of English is
‘grammatically correct’, but these views cannot be defended on either logical or linguistic
grounds.
If, on the other hand, some speaker of English produced examples like (5), then we could
justifiably claim that they were speaking ungrammatically:

Such examples completely contravene the mental rules of all dialects of English. We all agree
on this, yet speakers of English haven’t been taught that the sentences in (5) are bad. Our
judgements must therefore be part of the shared mental grammar of English.
Most of the rules of this mental grammar are never dealt with by prescriptive or teaching
grammars. So no grammar of English would ever explain that although we can say both (6a)
and (6b), we can’t have questions like (7) (the gap____ indicates an understood but ‘missing’
element, represented by the question word what):

The rules that make (7) impossible are so immutable and fundamental that they hardly seem
to count as a subject for discussion: native speakers never stop to wonder why (7) is not
possible. Not only are examples like (7) ungrammatical in English (i.e. they sound impossible
to native speakers), they are ungrammatical in Welsh, as in (8):

In fact, the equivalents to (7) and (8) are generally ungrammatical in the world’s languages. It
seems likely, then, that many of the unconsciously ‘known’ rules of individual languages like
English or Welsh are actually UNIVERSAL – common to all languages.

Before reading further, note that English does have a way of expressing what (7) would
mean if it were grammatical – in other words, a way of expressing the question you
would ask if you wanted to know what it was that they were eating with their eggs.
How is this question formed?

You could ask: They are eating eggs and what? (with heavy emphasis on the what). This is
termed an echo question.
The fact that certain organizing rules and principles in language are universal leads many
linguists to conclude that human beings have an INNATE language faculty – that is, one we are
born with. We can’t examine this directly, and we still know relatively little about what brain
circuitry is involved, but we do know that there must be something unique to humans in this
regard. All normal children learn at least one language, but no other animals have anything
like language as a natural communication system, nor are they able to learn a human
language, even under intense instruction. To try and understand the language faculty, we
examine its output – namely the structures of natural languages. So by looking at syntax we
hope to discover the common properties between languages, and maybe even ultimately to
discover something about the workings of the human brain.
As well as looking for absolutely universal principles, linguists are interested in discovering
what types of construction are possible (and impossible) in the world’s languages. We look for
recurring patterns, and oft en find that amazingly similar constructions appear in unrelated
languages. In the next paragraph I give an example of this type which compares Indonesian
and English. You don’t have to know anything about Indonesian to get the point being made,
but if the idea of looking closely at exotic languages seems too daunting at this stage, come
back to the examples aft er you’ve read Section 1.2. Boxed sections invite the reader to work
something out, as in the section earlier starting with “Before reading further…”; where
necessary, the exercise is followed by a suggested answer. Here, the task is simply to examine
all the sentences, and try to follow the argument.

In English we can say either (9a) or (9b) – they alternate freely. In (9b) Hasan appears
before the letter, and the word to has disappeared; let’s say that in (9b) Hasan has been
PROMOTED in the sentence:

In Indonesian, we find the same alternation, shown in (10). If you’re reading this before
the discussion on the use of linguistic examples in Section 1.2, please remember to
concentrate particularly on the second line of each example: the literal translation. The
main ‘foreign’ feature in (10) is surat itu ‘letter the’ where English has the word order
‘the letter’; otherwise, the word order in the two Indonesian examples is the same as that
of the two English examples in (9):

In (10b) we find an ending - kan on the word for ‘send’: this ending indicates in
Indonesian that the word Hasan has been promoted. English has no equivalent to - kan.
Now look again at the English in (9). When Hasan is in the promoted position in (9b),
we can promote it further in the sentence, giving (11). We indicate the position that
Hasan is understood to have moved from with the gap. In (11) there is also a change
from sent to was sent, which signals this further promotion of Hasan. To understand
 Another Random Document on
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corpulent, made, literally, a stout resistance, having thrown herself
into a strong tower, which set rather tight upon her, like a corsage,
and in this position she for some time defied the assaults of the
enemy. Encased in this substantial breastwork, she awaited the
threatened lacing at the hands of her grandson, when John came to
her rescue. In the night between the 31st of July and the 1st of
August, he took the town, dragged Arthur out of his bed, as well as
some two hundred nobles who were "hanging out" at the different
lodgings in the city. After cruelly beating them, he literally loaded
them with irons, giving them cuffs first, and hand-cuffs immediately
afterwards. Twenty-two noblemen were thrown into the damp
dungeons of Corfe Castle, where they caught severe colds, of which
they soon died, and they were buried under the walls of Corfe
without coffins. * Young Arthur's tragical end has been the subject
of various conjectures. Several historians have tried their hands at
an interesting version of the young prince's death, but Shakspeare
has given the most effective, and not the least probable, account of
the fate of Arthur. The monks of Margan believe that John, in a fit of
intoxication, slew his nephew; but we have no proof that Lackland
was often in that disgraceful state, which in these days would have
rendered him liable to the loss of a crown—in the shape of the five-
shilling fine for drunkenness.

* Matthew Paris. It is to be regretted that the statement of

a fact sometimes involves the necessity for a pun, as in the
present instance. The faithful historian has, however, on
such an occasion, no alternative. Fidelity must not be
sacrificed even to a desire for solemnity.

Ralph, the abbot of Coggeshall, who agrees with Shakspeare in

many particulars, says that Arthur had been removed to Rouen,
where his uncle called for him on the night of the 3rd of April, 1203,
in a boat, to take a row on the river. It being time for all good little
children to be in bed and asleep, Arthur was both at the moment of
the avuncular visit. Boy-like, he made no objection to the absurd and
ill-timed excursion, for it is a curious fact, that infants are always
ready to get up at the most unseasonable hours, if anything in the
shape of pleasure is proposed to them. Arthur was soon in the boat
for a row up the Seine with his uncle John and Peter de Maulac,
Esquire, one of the unprincipled "men about town" at that
disreputable period.
They had not proceeded far when either John or Mr. de Maulao
seized the boy, as if he were so much superfluous ballast, and
cruelly pitched him overboard. Some say that the squire was the sole
executioner, while others hint that he turned squeamish at the last
moment, and left the disgraceful business to John; but they
doubtless shared the guilt, as they were both rowing in the same
boat, and were in point of private character "much of a muchness."
Shak-speare, as everybody knows, makes the young prince meet his
death more than half-way by leaping on to the stones below his
prison window, with a hope that they might prove softer than the
heart of his uncle. It is not improbable that a child so young may
have been foolish enough to jump to such a conclusion.
The rumour of the murder naturally occasioned the greatest
excitement; and if we are to believe the immortal bard, five moons
came mooning out upon the occasion, which may account for the
moonstruck condition of the populace.
The Britons, amongst whom Arthur had been educated, were
furious at the murder of their youthful prince, whose eldest sister,
Eleanor, was in the hands of her uncle John. This lady was called by
some, the Pearl of Brittany; but if she was really a gem, she must
have been an antique, for she spent forty years of her life in
captivity. The Britons, therefore, rallied round a younger heroine, her
half-sister, Alice, and appointed her father, Guy de Thouars, the
regent and general of their confederacy. De Thouars was a Guy only
in name, for he was extremely handsome, and had attracted the
attention of the lady Constance, whose third and last husband he
had become. Guy went as the head of a deputation to the French
king, who summoned John to a trial; but that individual instead of
attending the summons, allowed judgment to go by default, and was
sentenced to a forfeiture of his dominions.
John for some time treated the steps taken against him with
contempt, and remained at Rouen, until he thought it advisable to
go over to England, to prepare for his defence by collecting money,
for it was always by sucking dry the public purse, that tyrants in
those days were accustomed to look for succour.
It was by his efforts to extract cash from his people that he
excited among his nobles the discontent which has rendered the
discontented barons of his reign, par excellence, the discontented
barons of English history. He continued to mulct them every day, and
his reign was a long game of forfeits, in which the barons were
always the sufferers. Still they refused to quit the country for the
defence of their tyrant's foreign possessions.
By dint of threats and bribery he at last contrived (a.d. 1206) to
land an army at Rochelle, and a contest was about to commence,
when John proposed a parley. Without waiting for the answer, he ran
away, leaving a notice on the door of his tent, stating that he had
gone to England, and would return immediately, which, in
accordance with the modern "chamber-practice," was equivalent to
an announcement that he had no intention of coming back again.
John, who could agree with nobody, now began to quarrel with
the pope by starting a candidate for the see of Canterbury, in
opposition to Stephen Langton, the nominee of old Innocent. His
holiness desired three English bishops to go and remonstrate with
the king, who flew into a violent passion, and used the coarsest
language, winding up with a threat to "cut off their noses," which
caused the venerable deputation to "cut off" themselves with prompt
King John threatens to cut off the Noses of the Bishops.
The bishops, however, soon recovered from the effects of their ill-
treatment, and determined by the aid of the people to punish with
papal bulls the royal bully.
 Original Size

On Monday, the 23rd of March, 1208, they pronounced an

interdict against all John's dominions; but, like children setting fire to
a train of gunpowder and running away, the bishops quitted the
kingdom, as if afraid of the result of their own boldness. This was
soon followed by a bull of excommunication against John, but the
wary tyrant, by watching the ports, prevented the entrance of this
bull, which would have made it a mere toss up whether he could
keep possession of his throne.
John employed the year 1210 in raising money, by stealing it
wherever he could lay his hands upon it; for, says the chronicler, "as
long as there was a sum he could bone, he thought it the summum
bonum to get hold of it." With the cash he had collected he repaired
to Ireland, and at Dublin was joined by twenty robust chieftains,
who might have been called the Dublin stout of the thirteenth
century. Returning to England in three months with an empty
pocket, he became alarmed at hearing of a conspiracy among his
barons. He shut himself up for fifteen days in the castle of
Nottingham, seeing no one but the servants, and not permitting the
door to be opened even to take in the milk, lest the cream of the
British nobility should flow in with it.
At length, in the year 1213, Innocent hurled his last thunderbolt at
John's head, with the intention of knocking off his crown. The pope
pronounced the deposition of the English king, and declared the
throne open to competition, with a hint to Philip of France that he
might find it an eligible investment. He prepared a fleet of seventeen
hundred vessels at Boulogne, but some of the vessels must have
been little bigger than butter-boats if seventeen hundred of them
were crammed into this insignificant harbour. John, by a desperate
effort, got together sixty thousand men, but they were by no means
staunch, and he was as much afraid of his own troops as of those
belonging to the enemy. Pandulph, the pope's legate, knowing his
character, came to Dover, and frightened him by fearful pictures of
the enemy's strength, while Peter the Hermit, * who was rather
more plague than prophet, bored the tyrant with predictions of his
death. John, who was exceedingly superstitious, was so worked
upon by his fears that he agreed to Pandulph's terms, and on the
15th of May, 1213, he signed a sort of cognovit, acknowledging
himself the vassal of the pope, and agreeing to pay a thousand
marks a year, in token of which he set his own mark at the end of
the document.

* Some writers have called Peter the Hermit a hare-brained

recluse As his head was closely shaved the epithet "hair-
brained" seems to have been sadly misapplied.

He next offered Pandulph something for his trouble, but the legate
raising his leg, trampled the money under his foot. The next day was
that on which Peter the Hermit had prophesied that John would die,
and the tyrant remained from morning till night watching the clock
with intense anxiety. Finding himself alive at bedtime, he grew
furious against Peter for having caused him so much needless alarm,
and the Hermit was hanged for the want of foresight he had
exhibited. He died, exclaiming that the king should have been
grateful that the prediction had not been fulfilled; "but," added he,
as he placed his head through the fatal noose, "some folks are never
satisfied." The French king was exceedingly disgusted at the shabby
treatment he had received; but Philip expended his rage in a few
philippics against Pandulph, who merely expressed his regret, and
added peremptorily, that England being now under the dominion of
the pope, must henceforth be let alone. Philip alluded to the money
he was out of pocket, but the nuncio politely observing that he was
not happy at questions of account, withdrew while repeating his
prohibition.
John, who had so lately eaten humble pie, soon began to regard
his promises as the pie-crust, which he commenced breaking very
rapidly. Wishing, however, to carry the war into France, he required
the services of his barons, who were very reluctant to aid him, and
he had got as far as Jersey, when happening to look behind him, he
perceived that he had scarcely any followers. He had started with a
tolerable number, but they turned back sulkily by degrees, without
his being aware of it until he arrived at Jersey, when he was
preparing to turn himself round, and perceived that his suite had
dwindled down to a few mercenaries, who hung on to his skirts
merely for the sake of what he had got in his pockets. Becoming
exceedingly angry, he wheeled suddenly back, and vented his spite
in burning and ravaging everything that crossed his path. He was in
a flaming passion, for he set fire to all the buildings on the road till
he reached Northampton, where Langton overtook him, and taxed
him with the violation of his oath. "Mind your own business," roared
the king, "and leave me to manage mine;" but Langton would not
take an answer of that kind, and stuck to him all the way to
Nottingham, where the prelate, according to his own quaint
phraseology, "went at him again" with more success than formerly.
John issued summonses to the barons, and Langton hastened to see
them in London, where he drew up a strong affidavit by which they
all swore to be true to each other, and to their liberties.
John was still apprehensive of the hostility of the pope, which
might have been fatal at this juncture, had not Cardinal Nicholas
arrived in the nick of time, namely, on the 12th of September, 1213,
to take off the interdict. The court of Rome thus executed a sort of
chassez-croisez, by going over to the side of John, but Langton did
not desert his old partner, liberty. In the following year the English
king was defeated at the battle of Bouvines, one of the most
tremendous affrays recorded in history. Salisbury, surnamed
Longsword, was captured by that early specimen of the church
militant, the Bishop of Beauvais, who, because it was contrary to the
canons of the Church for him to shed blood, fought with a
ponderous club, by which he knocked the enemy on the head, and
acquired the name of the stunning bishop. He banged about him in
such style, that he might have been eligible for the see of Bangor,
had his ambition pointed in that direction. John obtained a truce; but
the discontented barons had already placed a rod in pickle for him,
and on the 20th day of November, they held a crowded meeting at
St. Edmund's Bury, which was adjourned until Christmas. At that
festive season, John found himself eating his roast beef entirely
alone, for nobody called to wish him joy, or partake his pudding.

Original Size
 After dining by himself, at Worcester, he started for London,
making sure of a little-gaiety at boxing-time, in the great metropolis.
Nobody, however, took the slightest notice of him until one day
the whole of the barons came to him in a body, to pay him a
morning visit. Surprised at the largeness of the party, he was
somewhat cool, but on hearing that they had come for liberty, he
declared that he would not allow any liberty to be taken while he
continued king of England. The party remained firm with one or two
exceptions, when John began to shiver as if attacked with ague, and
he went on blowing hot and cold as long as he could, until pressed
by the barons for an answer to their petition. He then replied
evasively, "Why—yes—no; let me see—ha! exactly—stop! Well, I
don't know, perhaps so—'pon honour;" and ultimately obtained time
until Easter, to consider the proposals that were made to him. The
confederated barons had no sooner got outside the street-door than
John began to think over the means of circumventing them. As they
separated on the threshold, to go to their respective homes, it was
evident from the gestures and countenances of the group that there
had been a difference of opinion as to the policy of granting John
the time he had requested. A bishop and two barons, who had
turned recreants at the interview, and receded from their claims,
were of course severely bullied by the rest of the confederates, on
quitting the royal presence. At length the day arrived, in Easter
week, when the barons were to go for an answer to the little Bill—of
Rights—which they had left with John at the preceding Christmas.
They met at Stamford, where they got up a grand military spectacle,
including two thousand knights and an enormous troop of
auxiliaries. The king, who was at Oxford, sent off Cardinal Langton,
with the Earls of Pembroke and Warrenne, as a deputation, who
soon returned with a schedule of terrific length, containing a
catalogue of grievances, which the barons declared they would have
remedied.
 John flew into one of his usual passions, tearing his
long hair, and rapidly pacing his chamber with the
skirt of his robe thrown over his left arm, while, with
his right hand, he shook his fist at vacancy. The
deputation could merely observe calmly, "We have
done our part of the business: that is what the barons Original Size
want;" and a roll of parchment was instantly allowed to run out to its
full length at the foot of the enraged sovereign. John took up the
document and pretended to inspect it with much minuteness,
muttering to himself, "No, I don't see it down," upon which Langton
asked the sovereign what he was looking for. "I was searching,"
sarcastically roared the tyrant, "for the crown, which I fully expected
to find scheduled as one of the items I am called upon to surrender."
This led to some desultory conversation, in the course of which the
king made some evasive offers, which the barons would not accept,
and the latter, appointing Robert Fitz-Walter as their general, at once
commenced hostilities.
They first marched upon the castle of Northampton, but when
they got under the walls they discovered that they had got no
battering-rams, and after sitting looking at the castle for fifteen
days, they marched off again. At Bedford, where they went next, the
same farce might have been enacted, had not the inhabitants
opened the gates for them. Here they received an invitation from
London, and stopping to rest for the night at Ware—on account,
perhaps, of the accommodation afforded by the Great Bed—they
arrived on Sunday, the 24th of May, 1215, in the City. Here they
were joined by the whole nobility of England, while John was
abandoned by all but seven knights, who remained near his person,
the seven knights forming a weak protection, to the sovereign. His
heart at first failed him, but he was a capital actor, and soon
assumed a sort of easy cheerfulness. He presented his compliments
to the barons, and assured them he should be most happy to meet
them, if they would appoint a time and place for an interview. The
barons instantly fixed the 19th of June at Runny-Mead, when John
intimated that he should have much pleasure in accepting the polite
invitation.
At length the eventful morning arrived, when John cantered
quietly down from Windsor Castle, attended by eight bishops and a
party of about twenty gentlemen. These, however, were not his
friends, but had been lent by the other side, "for the look of the
thing," lest the king should seem to be wholly without attendants.
The barons, who had been stopping at Staines, were of course
punctual, and had got the pen and ink all laid out upon the table,
with a Windsor chair brought expressly from the town of Windsor for
John to sit down upon. It had been expected that he would have
raised some futile objections to sign; but the crafty sovereign,
knowing it was a sine qua non, made but one plunge into the
inkstand, and affixed his autograph. It is said that he dropped a dip
of ink accidentally on the parchment, and that he mentally
ejaculated "Ha! this affair will be a blot upon my name for ever." The
facility with which the king attached his signature to Magna Charta—
the great charter of England's liberties—naturally excited suspicion;
for it is a remark founded on a long acquaintance with human
nature, that the man who never means to take up a bill is always
foremost in accepting one. Had John contemplated adhering to the
provisions of the document he would have probably discussed the
various clauses, but a swindler seldom disputes the items of an
account, when he has not the remotest intention of paying it.
Though Magna Charta has been practically superseded by
subsequent statutes, it must always be venerated as one of the
great foundations of our liberties. It established the "beautiful
principle" that taxation shall only take place by the consent of those
taxed—a principle the beauty of which has been its chief advantage,
for it has proved less an article for use than for ornament. The
agreeable figure that everyone who pays a tax does so with his own
full concurrence, and simply because he likes it, is a pleasing
delusion, which all have not the happiness to labour under. It was
also provided that "the king should sell, delay, or deny justice to
none," a condition that can scarcely be considered fulfilled when we
look at some of the bills of costs that generally follow a long suit in
that game of chance which has obtained the singularly appropriate
title of Chancery. It may be perhaps argued, that the article delayed
and sold is law, whereas Magna Charta alludes only to Justice. This,
we must admit, establishes a distinction—not without a difference.
Though John had kept his temper tolerably well at the meeting
with the barons, he had no sooner got back to Windsor Castle, than
he called a few foreign adventurers around him, and indulged in a
good hearty swearing fit against the charter. He grew so frantic,
according to the chroniclers, that he "gnashed his teeth, rolled his
eyes, and gnawed sticks and straws," though he could scarcely have
done all this without sending for the umbrella-stand, and having a
good bite at its contents, or ordering in a few wisps from the stable.
That John was exceedingly mad with the barons for what they had
made him do, is perfectly true, but we do not go the length of those
who look upon a truss of straw as essential to a person labouring
under mental aberration.
John now went to reside in the Isle of Wight, and tried to
captivate the fishermen by adopting their manners. There is nothing
very captivating in the manners of the fishermen of the Isle of Wight
at the present day, whatever may have been the case formerly; but
it is probable that the king became popular by a sort of hail-fellow-
well-met-ishness, to which his dreadful habit of swearing no doubt
greatly contributed. Having imported a lot of mercenaries from the
Continent, he posted off to Dover to land the disgraceful cargo, and
with them he marched against Rochester Castle, which had been
seized by William D'Albiney. The larder was wretchedly low when
D'Albiney first took possession, and the garrison was soon reduced
to its last mouthful of provisions. This consisted of a piece of rind of
cheese, which everybody had refused in daintier days, when
provisions were plentiful. D'Albiney bolted the morsel and unbolted
the gate nearly at the same moment, when John, rushing in,
butchered all the supernumeraries and sent the principal characters
to Corfe Castle.
 John, who always grew bold when there was no opposition,
committed all sorts of atrocities upon places without defence, and
the barons shut up in Lincoln, held numerous meetings, which
terminated in a resolution to offer the crown to Louis, the son of
Philip of France, provided the young gentleman and his papa would
come over and fight for it. Louis left Calais with six hundred and
eighty vessels, but he had a terribly bad passage across to
Sandwich, where the "flats," as usual, permitted the landing of an
enemy. John, who had run round to Dover with a numerous army,
fled before the French landed, and committed arson on an extensive
scale all over the country. Every night was a "night wi' Burns," and
the royal incendiary seems to have put himself under the especial
protection of Blaise, as the only saint with whom the tyrant felt the
smallest sympathy. John ultimately put up at Bristol, and the
neighbourhood of Bath seems to have quenched for a time his
flaming impetuosity.
Louis having besieged Rochester Castle, which seems in those
days to have been very like a copy of the Times newspaper, which
some one was always anxious to take directly it was out of hand,
marched on to London. He arrived there on the 2nd of June, 1216,
where he was received with that enthusiasm which the hospitable
cockneys have ever been ready to bestow on foreigners of
distinction. Nearly all the few followers that had hitherto adhered to
John now abandoned him, and he was left almost alone with Gualo,
the pope's legate, who did all he could to revive the drooping spirits
of the tyrant. Vainly however did Gualo slap the sovereign on the
back, inviting him to "cheer up," and ply him with cider, his favourite
beverage. "Come! drown it in the bowl," was the constant cry of
Gualo. "Talk not of bowls," was the reply of John; "what is life but a
game at bowls, in which the king is too frequently knocked over?"
Louis, in the meantime, growing arrogant with success,
commenced insulting, the English and granting their property to his
foreign followers. The barons began to think they had made a false
step with reference to their own country by allowing the French
prince to put his foot in it. This for a moment brightened the
prospects of John, who started off and went blazing away as far as
Lynn, where he had got a dépôt of provisions, and of course a
change of linen. Hence he made for Wisbeach, and put up at a place
called the "Cross Keys," intending to cross the Wash, which is a very
passable place at low water.
John was nearly across when he heard the tide beginning to roar
with fearful fury. Knowing that tide and time wait for no man, he felt
he was tied to time, and hurried to the opposite shore with
tremendous rapidity. He succeeded in reaching land; but his horses,
with his plate, linen, and money were not so fortunate, for he had
the mortification of seeing all his clothes lost in the Wash, and the
utter sinking of the whole of his capital.
Venting his sorrow in cursory remarks and discursive curses, he
went on to Swineshead Abbey, where he passed the night in eating
peaches and pears, and drinking new cider. * The cider of course
added to the fermentation that was going on in his fevered frame;
and even without the peaches and pears, the efforts of his
physicians might have proved fruitless. He went to bed, but could
not sleep, for his conscience continued to impeach him in a series of
frightful dreams, to which the peaches no doubt contributed. He
nevertheless made an effort to get up the next morning, and
mounted his horse on the 15th of October; but he was too ill to keep
his seat, and his attendants, putting him into a horse-box, got him
as far as Sleaford. Here he passed another shocking night, but the
next day they again moved him into the horse-box, and dragged him
to Newark, where he requested that a confessor might be sent for.
The abbot of Crocton, who was a doctor as well as a divine,
immediately attended, and this leech was employed in drawing a
confession from the lips of the tyrant. He named his eldest son,
Henry, his successor, and dictated a begging-letter to the new pope,
imploring protection for his small and helpless children. He died on
the 18th of October, 1216, in the forty-ninth year of his age, and the
seventeenth of one of the most uncomfortable reigns recorded in
English history. From first to last he seems to have been cut by his
subjects, for we find him eating his Christmas dinner alone in the
very middle of his sovereignty, and dragged about the country in a
horse-box within a day of his death, when such active treatment
could not have been beneficial to the royal patient in an advanced
stage of fever.

* Matthew Parin, point of accommodation than the humblest

gentleman. His case reminds us of an individual, who,
finding himself in a sedan with neither top nor bottom to
it, came to the conclusion that he might as well have walked
but for "the look of the thing." So it may be said of John,
that deprived of all the substantial advantages of a throne,
he might but "for the name of the thing" have just as well
been a private individual.

The character of John has been so fully developed in the account

of his reign that it is quite unnecessary to sum him up on the
present occasion. If he harassed the barons, they certainly
succeeded in returning the compliment; for he seems to have had a
most unpleasant time of it. He had the title of king, but was often
worse off.

Original Size
 BOOK III. THE PERIOD FROM THE
ACCESSION OF HENRY THE THIRD,
TO THE END OF THE REIGN OF
RICHARD THE SECOND. A.D. 1216—
1399.
 CHAPTER THE FIRST. HENRY THE
THIRD, SURNAMED OF
WINCHESTER.

ENRY, the eldest son of John, was a child under ten

years of age at the time of his father's death, but his
brother-in-law, the Earl of Pembroke, brought him to
Gloucester and got him crowned by Gualo, who had
always acted as a friend of the family. The coronation,
which took place on the 28th of October, 1216, was
very indifferently got up, for the crown had not come
Original Size from the Wash, where it had been lying in soak ever
since John's unfortunate expedition across the water from Wisbeach.
Gualo therefore took a ring from his finger, and put it on the young
king's head, as a substitute for the missing diadem. The coronation
party consisted of three earls, three bishops, and four barons, with a
sprinkling of abbots and priors, comprising altogether a retinue of
about thirty individuals.
The clergy of Westminster and Canterbury complained bitterly of
the ceremony having been "scamped," by which their rights had
been invaded, or, in other words, by which they had been done out
of their perquisites. The first coronation was therefore treated as a
mere rehearsal, and a more regular performance afterwards took
place, with new machinery, dresses, decorations, and all the usual
properties.
On the 11th of the following November, Pembroke was appointed
rector Regis et Regni—ruler of the king and kingdom—so that Henry
the Third was sovereign de jure with a de facto viceroy over him.
This arrangement was made at a great council held at Bristol, where
Magna Charta was revised with a view to the publication of a new
and improved edition.
Louis, on hearing of John's death, puffed himself up with a
certainty of success, but he only realised the old fable of the French
frog and the British bull; for, becoming inflated with pride, he was
not long in bursting like an empty bubble.
As Christmas, 1216, was close at hand, a truce was arranged, to
enable each party to enjoy the holidays. Louis took advantage of the
vacation to go to Paris to consult his father Philip, who, like a
modern French king of the same name, was remarkable for his tact
in doing the best for his own family. On his return to England, Louis
encountered some hostility from the hardy mariners of the Cinque
Ports—the Deal and Dover boatmen of that day—but reaching
Sandwich, he got over the flats with the usual facility. He however
spitefully burned the town to the ground, merely because it was one
of the Cinque Ports, which had turned crusty at his approach,
though it was hardly fair of him to mull the only port that did not
prove too strong for him. Hostilities were continued on both sides
with varying success, until the Count de la Perche, a French general,
flushed with a recent triumph at Mount Sorel, in Leicester,
determined to attack the Castle of Lincoln. He would probably have
succeeded, but for the resistance of a woman, the widow of the late
keeper of the castle, who, with the obstinacy of her sex, refused to
surrender. The Count de la Perche, ashamed of being beaten by one
of the gentler sex, continued the attack, and refusing to quit the
town, found himself involved in a series of street rows of the most
alarming character.
Pembroke having collected a large force, sent part of it into the
castle by the back garden gate, and the other part into the town, so
that poor de la Perche found it impossible to move either one way or
the other. The English literally gave it him right and left till he died;
and after falling upon the almost defenceless French, they gave the
name of "the fair of Lincoln" to a battle about as unfair as any
recorded in the pages of history.
This event, which came off on the 20th of May, 1217, was
followed in June by a conference which, like Panton Square, led to
nothing. Louis made one more attempt upon Dover, but he had no
means to carry on the war, and he was obliged to raise the siege, as
he could not raise the money. He hastened to London, which he had
no sooner entered than the English shut the gates and locked him
in; while the pope sent a tremendous bull down upon him, to add to
his annoyances. Louis began to feel that he had had quite enough of
it, and being anxious for a little peace, he proposed one to
Pembroke. The terms were soon agreed upon, but Louis was
detained in town some little time for want of the money to pay his
debts and his journey home again. The citizens of London forming
themselves into a loan society, advanced a few pounds to the French
prince, who deserves some credit for not having taken French leave
of his creditors. By the terms of the treaty he surrendered all his
claims upon the English crown, which seems to have been rather a
superfluous sacrifice, as he had been trying it on for some time, and
found that the cap never fitted.
As Louis went out of London at the East End, to embark for
France, Henry, who had been at Kingston, came in at Hyde Park
Corner. Pembroke, the regent, made him exceedingly popular by
advising him to confirm Magna Charta, and to add a clause or two
for the purpose of freshening it up, so that the new edition might
repay perusal. Unfortunately for the prospects of the kingdom,
Pembroke died, in May, 1219, and was buried in the Temple Church,
where his tomb is still to be seen by anyone who can obtain a
bencher's order. The regent's authority was now divided between
Hubert de Burgh and Peter—or, as Rapin christens him—William des
Roches, the Bishop of Winchester. These two individuals, though
jealous of each other, agreed in the propriety of another coronation,
probably on account of the patronage it gave to those who
happened to be in power; and as the couple in question had just
taken office, they were anxious to realise some of the profits at the
earliest opportunity. In the quarrels between these two worthies,
Des Roches was getting rather the upper hand, when Hubert de
Burgh, in 1223, got the pope to declare that the king, who was only
sixteen years of age, had attained his majority. Thus, like the dog in
the manger, Hubert determined that no one else should enjoy a
position which he himself was unable to profit by. This was an "artful
dodge" of the cunning Hubert, to get the game into his own hands,
for Henry on being pronounced "of age," having received a
surrender of various castles and fortified places from the barons,
gave back those which he had no occasion for to the wily minister.
The barons, finding themselves bamboozled, became exceedingly
angry with the king and Hubert, but the latter went on, alternately
hanging and excommunicating, until he had settled the obstreperous
and quelled the turbulent.
The year 1225 must ever be remarkable for the refusal of
Parliament—a name that was then coming into use—to grant
supplies without asking any questions. This had formerly been the
usual practice, but when Hubert coolly proposed a grant of a
fifteenth of all the movable property in the kingdom for the use of
the king, the Parliament said it was all very well, but if the money
was given there ought to be something to show for it. Henry
accordingly gave another ratification of Magna Charta, which was a
good deal like the old superfluous process of putting butter upon
bacon, for he had already twice ratified that important document. In
those days, however, there was no objection to giving the lily an
extra coat of paint, or treating the refined gold to an additional layer
of gilding.
In the year 1228, Henry had collected an army at Portsmouth to
sail for France, but Hubert de Burgh, who seems to have held the
place of First Lord of the Admiralty as well as his other offices, had
not provided a sufficient number of vessels. When the troops were
about to embark it was found impossible to stow them away even
with the closest packing. Henry flew into a violent passion with
Hubert, accusing him of pocketing the money he ought to have laid
Goode out in ships, and the king had drawn his sword, intending to
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