invaded by the French King; it was, therefore, altogether lost to the English crown.

About this time the Pope was very

The

angry with John. He had appointed Stephen Langton to be Archbishop of Canterbury, and John had said that he would not allow that priest even to enter England. The Pope, therefore, laid the kingdom under what is called an Interdict, which in those days was a terrible sentence. churches and churchyards were closed; no little children could be baptized; the dead could not have Christian burial, and marriages were obliged to be performed in the public roads. Although the people were very much troubled about these things, John would not yield; the Pope, therefore, passed sentence of Excommunication against him; his subjects were commanded not to obey him as their king any longer, and all Christian princes were required to assist in

dethroning him. The King of France answered this appeal by making preparations to invade England with a large army. John sought everywhere for assistance; but not being able to procure it, he was obliged to submit to whatever the Pope demanded. Cardinal Pandulf was sent to receive John's submission. Kneeling before him, the King gave the crown into his hands, and consented to hold it from the Pope as his master. The Pope, having thus gained his end, withdrew the interdict.

You might fancy that John had already sufficiently displeased his people; but his acts of cruelty and injustice became so frequent that the Barons conspired against him. They wrote on parchment the best of the laws of Alfred and Edward the Confessor, and required John to govern the country by them. At first he positively refused to do so; but finding that all the Barons were

against him, he was obliged to yield. A meeting took place on the 15th of June, 1215, in a meadow on the banks of the Thames near Windsor, called Runnymede, and here John signed the laws called the Great Charter; better known by its Latin name, Magna Charta. Very soon afterwards John collected an army of foreign soldiers, and attacked the castles of the Barons. He destroyed and burned them everywhere he went, until he came to the Wash, a bay which sometimes is quite dry; but which at other times there is great danger in passing over. John himself crossed in safety; but his carriages and treasures were all swept away by the returning tide. That night John slept at Swinstead Abbey, where grief and vexation threw him into a raging fever. He was removed to Newark where he died, in the eighteenth year of his reign.

HENRY THE THIRD, OF

WINCHESTER.

1216-1272.

HENRY OF WINCHESTER, as he was called from the place where he was born, was only nine years of age when his father died. The little boy, having first sworn to obey the Great Charter which had been signed by his father, was crowned by Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury. The Earl of Pembroke, a wise and a brave man, was appointed his guardian; and the affairs of the kingdom were intrusted to that nobleman, who did his duty so well, that all the people were pleased with him.

When Henry had arrived at an age that he was able to take the government of the kingdom into his own hands, he showed that weakness and feebleness of