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They made inquiry into wrong and redressed it. But you, it seems, can only feel sore and angry that intolerable conditions imposed by your laws were not borne in patience and silence. For what party do you speak? What political ideal inspires you? When an Irishman has a grievance you smite him. How differently would you have written of Runnymede and the valiant men who rebelled when oppressed.
The Honorable Bertie Raven, second son of the Earl of Runnymede, might have stepped out of one of Poole's fashion-plates, so far as dress was concerned. But there was a strained look on his handsome, patrician face, and in his blue eyes, that told of a gnawing mental anxiety. He linked arms with his companion, and drew him to the edge of the pavement.
Now it was the fortune of the Runnymede hunt that many of those who rode with the hounds were strangers to the country, men who came down by train from London, gentlemen of perhaps no great distinction, who could ride hard, but as to whom it was thought that as they did not provide the land to ride over, or the fences to be destroyed, or the coverts for the foxes, or the greater part of the subscription, they ought not to oppose those by whom all these things were supplied.
Now and then a distinguished soldier or even a statesman could be ennobled without much harm; and he supposed there was something to be said for a learned man, and a writer or two, though he preferred them to be childless. He had once published a book himself, with the Runnymede arms on the cover.
There was the cub-hunting to be looked after, which made his presence at Runnymede necessary, and then that "pig-headed fellow, Silverbridge" would not have the horses trained anywhere but at Newmarket. How was he to be in two places at once?
There is no distinction of blood or class, of Norman or not Norman, of noble or not noble. All are recognized as Englishmen, the rights of all are owned as English rights. Bishops and nobles claimed and secured at Runnymede the rights not of baron and churchman only but those of freeholder and merchant, of townsman and villein.
In the Battle of Hastings he will make out Harold to be the head of a highly patriotic nation called the "Anglo-Saxons"; they shall be desperately defending themselves against certain French-speaking Scandinavians called Normans. He will deplore the defeat, but will say it was all for the best. Magna Charta he will have signed at Runnymede probably he will have it drawn up there as well.
The Barons of Runnymede were fighting the battles of every ploughboy in England when they wrenched Magna Charta from King John.
At one time the monarch had to face them at Runnymede and yield to their demands; at another he was able to restrain them with a strong hand. The Church and the barons, when acting in union, proved too strong for the sovereign, and he had to secure the alliance of one of these parties to defeat the views of the other.
"You can't have it, Bertie. Now, don't get riled listen to me. Where was your father while you were going the pace so heavily?" "In Scotland at Runnymede Castle. He's there still, and knows nothing of what I've been doing. I dare say he thinks I've been living comfortably on my income a beggarly five hundred a year!" "What amount is the bill that falls due to-day?"
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