Note 28 — Stephen Langton and the Great Charter 1207–1228

“If he was to give up all for which he had been fighting, and fighting successfully, against the pope and the Church for the past six years, he must make quite sure of gaining such an advantage as would be worth the sacrifice. Mere release from excommunication and interdict was certainly, in his eyes, not worth any sacrifice at all. To change the pope from an enemy into a political friend was worth it, but—from John’s point of view—only if the friendship could be made something much more close and indissoluble than the ordinary official relation between the pope and every Christian sovereign. He must bind the pope to his personal interest by some special tie of such a nature that the interest of the papacy itself would prevent Innocent from casting it off or breaking it.... To outward personal humiliation of any kind John was absolutely indifferent, when there was any advantage to be gained by undergoing it. To any humiliation which the crown or the nation might suffer in his person, he was indifferent under all circumstances. His plighted faith he had never had a moment’s hesitation in breaking, whether it were sworn to his father, his brother, his allies or his people, and he would break it with equal facility when sworn to the supreme pontiff.... There seems, in short, to be good reason for believing that John’s homage to the pope was offered without any pressure from Rome and on grounds of deliberate policy.”—K. Norgate, John Lackland.