Becket’s tomb in the crypt of Canterbury Cathedral [21] became a shrine at which miracles occurred and soon after, in 1173, the pope canonized him. Canterbury swiftly became the most popular centre of pilgrimage in medieval England. The king himself did penance walking barefoot through the streets of Canterbury and after that gave himself over to being flogged by his bishops and monks. Yet, Henry’s inheritance was splendid: good government in terms of peace, law and order on a scale unknown to any other country in Western Europe at the time.

Nothing is more striking than the stability of England at the time of Henry’s death. So strong was the government that it could withstand the fact that the next king, Richard I, who ruled for a decade (1189–1199), only visited the country twice, once for three months, and a second time only for two. He was dubbed Coeur de Lion or Lion-Hearted, in tribute to his dare-devil bravery; England was looked upon as little more than a source for money to pay for the crusade on which he embarked. When Richard was killed the Angevin Empire passed to John.

This time it was a far from glorious legacy: war with an increasingly powerful French king, financial crisis in England caused by the wars, as well as the late king’s crusade and ransom money. Whatever Richard’s shortcomings, he had been respected and evoked loyalty. No one quite trusted John (1199–1216), who had been nicknamed Lackland by his father.

Normandy, Anjou and Brittany soon fell into the hands of Philip Augustus, the French king. All that was now left of the Angevin Empire was Aquitaine, commercially held fast to England by the wine trade. These disasters were followed by a seven-year struggle with the pope over the choice of a new Archbishop of Canterbury. The monks went ahead and elected the archbishop with no reference to the king. John had his own candidate; the pope, however, declared both of the elections void and had the monks elect Stephen Langton. John refused to recognize the new archbishop; the pope in reply excommunicated the king and laid the country under an interdict. For seven years the churches remained closed and finally John gave in.

In 1214 the war against France was reopened, but the campaign was a total failure. The king returned to find an empty treasury and enraged barons. At Runnymede, on the Thames near Windsor, the lords forced John on 17 June 1215 to sign Magna Carta. The Great Charter contained over 60 clauses putting into writing an agreed body of laws covering every aspect of government and of the relationship of the king to his subjects. This was the beginning of the idea that people ought to be consulted and in the long term it was to lead to Parliament. The two most important matters covered by the Charter were that no tax should be made without the approval of the council, and no freeman should be arrested or imprisoned except by the law of the land. Other clauses guaranteed the freedom of the church from royal interference and the privileges of the newly emerging boroughs, above all the city of London.

John signed unwillingly. But the Great Charter itself gave the lords the right to use force against the king if he broke his word. Quite soon John supported by the pope declared the charter unlawful, so fighting broke out again, during which John suddenly died. His son Henry III (1216–1272) was only nine and under the wise influence of Langton the Charter was accepted, and all was peaceful until Henry became old enough to rule. His main aim was to ensure that he was absolute monarch. His high aspirations were summed up in rebuilding Westminster Abbey in the French Gothic Style. The sanctity of kings was emphasized in the royal saint, Edward the Confessor, who was given a splendid new shrine behind the high altar around which there was to be a royal burial place. The regalia were kept in the new church, which was also the setting for the ritual of coronation. It was even believed that the king could heal by touch those suffering from scrofula. For the first 30 years of his reign Henry was able to rule more or less as he liked. But gradually government was becoming increasingly complicated. A century before, the chancery and the exchequer had been merely parts of the royal household dealing with administrative and financial affairs. By the middle of the 13th century they had moved out and become separate departments, the barons were suspicious and wanted to have a say in the choice of the chancellor and the treasurer. Their means of achieving such control was through meetings of the Great Council which included all the lay and clerical leaders of the nation, but whose composition wasn’t fixed. The king however made use of his own Royal Council consisting of men of his choice. The barons objected. Henry would have survived these challenges to his rule if his choices had been wiser and his government more effective. But it wasn’t the case. So, for almost ten years, between 1257 and 1265, the king and barons were locked in a succession of crises in a struggle for control. The eventual result was civil war. At the battle of Lewes the king was defeated and, a year later, in 1265, Simon de Montfort, the leader of the opposition, was not only defeated but killed. The king had seemingly won, but this was not altogether true, for during these years the Great Council met more and more often. Added to it now were knights to represent the shires and burgesses to represent the towns. Never before had the meetings of the Council included so many different classes. The meetings were called parliaments from the French word