The Great Events by Famous Historians [Volumes 1-14]

BEGINNINGS OF MODERN GOVERNMENT

Historians have united to pour upon John every species of opprobrium. Certain it is that he secured his crown by evil means, that he sought to protect it by falsity and treachery. But after all, his rival, Philip Augustus, could be treacherous too, and the main difference between them is that Philip defeated John. He wrenched from him Normandy and many of John's other French provinces, so that the dominions of the English kings were reduced to scarce half their former compass. Hence the opprobrium on John.[5]

Heavy as the loss might seem, it proved in reality a blessing to the English race. Forced to confine themselves to Great Britain, her kings became truly English, instead of French—which they had been hitherto. England ceased to be a mere appanage of Normandy, ruled by Norman nobles. The Normans who had settled in the island became sharply divided from those who remained in France, and Saxons and English-Normans became firmly welded into a united race. This is what England owes to John.

Moreover his tyranny and falsehood led the lower classes in his realm to unite with the nobility against him. Thus the deepset class distinction of feudal times between lord and serf, the owner and the owned, became less marked in England than elsewhere in Europe. The vast threefold struggle which had everywhere to be fought out between kings, nobles, and commons was in England decided against the kings by the union of the other two.

Their combined strength forced from John the Magna Charta, or Great Charter, the foundation of modern government in England, though the celebrated document granted no new privilege to lord or citizen or peasant. It only confirmed on parchment the rights which John would have denied them. So this also, the corner-stone of liberty, the beginning of constitutional progress, does England owe to her oppressor. Never perhaps has any man devoted to evil done unwittingly so much of good as he.[6]

Thus the English nation grew united, while the French provinces were brought into closer dependence on their own king. In fact, Philip Augustus, by clever use now of the commons, now of the nobles, succeeded in dominating both. Following his example his successors managed for many centuries to remain "lords of France" with a security and absoluteness of power which no English king, no German emperor, was ever again to attain.

In Germany the death of Barbarossa left his throne to a short-lived evil son and then to an infant grandson, Frederick II. Other claimants to the realm sprang up, the great lords asserted and fully established their right to elect what emperor they pleased. Through this right they made themselves strong, their ruler weak, and so feudalism persisted in Germany while it was fading in France and England. Private war continued, baron fought against baron, confusion and anarchy prevailed more and more, and in the march of civilization Germany was left behind. She lagged for centuries in the rear of her neighbors, staring after them, despising, envying, scarce comprehending. It is only within the last hundred and fifty years that Germany has reasserted her ancient place among the foremost of the nations.