Here Be Dragons - 1 by Sharon Penman (best inspirational books txt) 📕

with all its provisions, are you? Look upon the last page of the articles."Richard had only a passing boyhood acquaintance with Latin, and i took him some moments to make a laborious translation of the claus dealing with "the form of security for the preservation of the peace a liberties between King and Kingdom."The more he read, the more astonished he became. The articles p vided for a committee of twenty-five barons to act as a court of aP" against breaches of the charter provisions. If they decided John was ing in defiance of the charter, they had the power to seize his ca

452lands, and possessions in order to force him into compliance, to do him injury m any way they could, sparing only his person and his family Furthermore, all men were to be required to take an oath of obedience to these twenty-five barons, an oath to take precedence over oaths of allegiance to the KingTo Richard, this was an unheard-of constraint upon the inherent God-given powers of the crown, and a formula for disaster He did not need to be told that Fitz Walter, de Vesci, and their supporters would constitute a majority on this committee of twenty-five But it was the last sentence that shocked him so It forbade John to seek the charter's annulment from the Pope and held that the Archbishop of Canterbury, the other Bishops of England, and the papal legate Pandulf must agree to deny John's right of appeal to the curia in a matter already before it, to compel John to forswear his own liege lord, thePopeAs Richard looked up, his disbelief clearly showing on his face, John said grimly, "So you see, lad, whatever options I have, ignoring the charter is not amongst them " He joined Richard at the table, read again that last coercive clause, and then crumpled it in his fist, flung it to the floor"Much of what they want in the charter I could live with In fact, many of their demands can be found in a charter granted the city of Bnstol nigh on twenty years ago, a charter that eased distraint for debts, gave citizens the right to marry without the license of their lord, limited a lord's right of wardship Do you know who granted that Bnstol charter, Richard7 I did, as Earl of Gloucester ""I know you've ofttimes granted borough charters, Papa, and with generous privileges ""Including one to London, giving them the right to elect a mayor less than a week ere they opened the city gates to Fitz Walter1" John's rage was mounting, so was his sense of injury "I may not always nave dealt fairly with men Icould not trust, I'll concede that much I'd have been willing to redress individual grievances But I'll not submit to orce I'll not surrender the traditional and ancient rights of sovereignty, ngnts that were my father's before me and will be my son's after me I'll n°t turn my kingdom over to the likes of de Vesci and Fitz Walter'"But you put your great seal to this document, Papa You agreed to ^W them their charter of liberties "Sh at e^se could I do7 Fitz Walter holds London Llewelyn razed ^wardme Castle to the ground, and then took Shrewsbury There rei een outbreaks in Northampton and Exeter Lincoln is now in c . "ands In South Wales, Reginald de Braose is laying siege to the (Jar/8' seized from his father In the North of England, the Scots King ° give open aid to the rebels Christ, the country is in a virtual

452state of war! For nigh on a month, my revenues have been cut off, my government hamstrung. And each day sees more defections to the rebels. I'm no longer sure who's with me and who's not, and I do not know whom I can trust.Yes, I agreed to grant them their charter. At swordpoint! But the game is not over yet.""I've not read these articles, Papa. You say you can live with most of the provisions. Mayhap you could live with the charter, too, if you tried . . .""Never. This so-called peace treaty is utterly one-sided. There's no equity in it. They give up nothing, whilst I am compelled to free all hostages, to banish my foreign mercenaries and Poitevin bailiffs, to dismiss Peter desRoches as Justiciar. And then . . . then to submit to the judgment of five and twenty over-Kings, men who'd barter with the Devil to see me dead. But I amKing by God's will, not Eustace de Vesci's. As King, I am responsible for my subjects, not responsible to them. I'd rather lose my kingdom fighting for it than see it whittled away piecemeal by men like de Vesci, Fitz Walter, andLlewelyn ab lorwerth.""What will you do, Papa?""Whatever I have to do. I'll give them what they want, their Runnymede charter, and then we'll see; then they'll fly their true colors. Why do you think I've shown such forbearance, Richard? When have you ever known me to be so tender with traitors? But I've had to play to a larger audience than deVesci and Fitz Walter. There are one hundred ninety-seven baronies in the realm. As far as I know, thirty-nine are in rebel hands. A like number hold fast for the crown. That still leaves well over a hundred that are unaligned, that have not committed themselves to either side. I daresay most favor a charter in some form or other, but how many of them would be willing to fight for it, to fight both crown and Church? Especially when they see how FitzWalter and his five and twenty use their charter, as a means of feathering their own nests and settling old grudges . . . not all of them with me.""You mean, then, to ask the Pope to annul the charter?""If I have to, yes.""But what of this provision in the articles, the one expressly forbidding you to appeal to the