Charterhouse

“ Thus, though now unavoidably severed, the two separate parts of Sutton's foundation are still fulfilling the purposes of the founder. The London Charterhouse{105} remains—as Thackeray, in The Newcomes, depicts it—a peaceful haven for those whose reverses in the struggle of life have made them fit pensioners on Sutton's bounty; and the school equips, year by year, scholars of a younger generation, who frequently attain to posts of distinction in church and state. ”

“ There he led a life of pleasure with some jovial companions until he was sharply reproved by his father for his conduct, when he laid aside his gay apparel and assumed the habit of a monk in the London Charterhouse. ”

“ It is exactly the popular story that is left out of the popular history. For instance, even a working man, a carpenter or cooper or brick-layer, has been taught about the Great Charter, as something like the Great Auk, save that its almost monstrous solitude came from being before its time instead of after. He was not taught that the whole stuff of the Middle Ages was stiff with the parchment of charters; that society was once a system of charters, and of a kind much more interesting to him. ”

“ Such, briefly, was the constitution of the famous mediæval guilds, such were their faults and excellences. The record of these Cathedral windows helps us to realise their importance in the history of Chartres, and also enables us to imagine the state and the character of the old town’s trade. In spite of the exactions and taxes levied by bishop and count, chapter, monastery and viscount, the merchants of Chartres flourished mightily in the thirteenth century, and the fairs of the town held during the four feasts of Our Lady rivalled in importance even those of Brie and Champagne. ”

“ The Great Charter came into being, truly the 'Magna Charta,' which throws not merely all earlier, but also the later charters into the shade.
It is a document which, more than any other, links together the different epochs of English history. With a renewal of the earliest maxims of German personal freedom it combines a settlement of the rights of the feudal Estates: on this [Pg 54] twofold basis has the proud edifice of the English constitution been erected. ”

“ But in the reign of this very King James, and in the year of Grace 1611, the property passed into the hands of Robert Sutton, a wealthy London merchant, who has made the place what it is, and left fair memory of himself to all time.
The founder of the Charter House had two objects in view when he devoted his wealth to the benefit of generations to come. Besides the school, upon the foundation are maintained eighty pensioners, who live together in collegiate style. Each pensioner has a large and comfortable room to his separate use. ”

“ At Chartres, more than anywhere in France, the Middle Ages seem to have bequeathed to us the great heartbeat of their middle classes. Here we see about us the sturdy workers of the city, the guilds of its industrious burghers. True, the great rose windows of the transepts show us the royalty and chivalry of the kingdom, but somehow they seem decorative and not dominating as they do at Rheims. Nor are our friends of the guilds here present by any man’s let or by virtue of kingly condescension. ”

“ When in 987 Hugues Capet, Duke of France, decided to assume the title of King, the political unity of the Chartrains had long been broken by the territorial{53} usurpations of the great officers of the Crown. The government of the country under Charlemagne had been shared by seven counts—Chartres, Dreux, Châteaudun, Blois, Vendôme, Poissy and Mantes. But by Hugh Capet’s time these had been reduced to three—Chartres, Blois and Dreux—and in the person of Thibault-le-Vieux or le Tricheur, who was of Capetan stock, the counties of Blois and Chartres were united. ”

“ Troublesome as these perpetual conflicts between the rival authorities were, it is to be observed that the liberty of the cloister and the privileges of the clergy, which were in dispute, were institutions which led to the emancipation of some Chartrain families formerly subject to the Counts. The ecclesiastical corporations, in fact, set an example in this matter of enfranchisement which the Counts were slow to follow. And it was probably due to this antagonism that the feudal lords of Chartres delayed for so long the grants of a communal charter to the town. ”

“ I had the honour to he one of ten or twelve members of the House of Commons who were assisting, in conjunction with many most meritorious, able individuals of the working classes, in drawing up that composition. When that was done, there did, as it appeared to me at least, arise another set of men, who said: 'You have drawn up a charter, and the charter is a very good charter, but we are the only men who know anything how it should be gained.' Now, on that, I say there may be two opinions ”

“ If there had been railways in the Middle Ages there would probably have been a railwaymen's guild; and it would have had a charter from the King, defining their rights. A charter is the expression of an idea still true and then almost universal: that authority is necessary for nothing so much as for the granting of liberties. ”

“ But many of them are matters of primary importance in the constitutional history of England. The Great Charter must not, however, be overrated as an expression of general constitutional rights; to a large extent it is a mere recapitulation of the claims of the baronage, and gives redress for their feudal grievances in the matters of aids, reliefs, wardships, &c., its object being the repression of arbitrary exactions by the king on his tenants-in-chief. ”

“ Most of its provisions were old, and had been in other charters, such as that of Henry I. But the Great Charter is important because it was wrung from an unwilling king, and because it states very clearly and positively the rights of the people. It contains a great many clauses, of which the principal are: first, that the king could levy no taxes without the consent of the bishops and the barons; second, that no man could be imprisoned, dispossessed of his land, or otherwise punished, without a fair trial by his peers or equals. ”

“ For while these ambassadors were treating for this peace and had none agreeable answer, there fell suddenly such a{252} tempest of thunder, lightning, rain and hail in the King’s oost, that it seemed that the world should have ended: there fell from heaven such great stones that it slew men and horses, so that the most hardiest were abashed.
‘Then the King of England beheld the Church of our Lady of Charters, and avowed devoutly to our Lady to agree to the peace, and, as it was said, he was as then confessed, and lodged in a village near to Charters, called Brétigny. ”

“ ANDROS
Here, sir, are my orders. [rattle of paper] [Pg 8]
TREAT
And here, sir, is a true copy of our charter. [rattle of paper]
ANDROS
My orders supersede your charter.
TREAT
Our charter is a royal grant, and cannot be superseded except for cause by due process of law.
ANDROS
I shall take possession under my orders. You can appeal to the Privy Council for redress.
TREAT
You can take possession only after every man in this fort is dead!
ANDROS
Do you still insist on this ridiculous show of force?
TREAT
I do! If you make a move to land your troops, we will open fire! ”

“ As I struggle through Old Palace Yard I often wonder whether it is in the House of Commons or in the Chapter-house of the Abbey that Discord is so busily engaged, for the wind here, as in Chartres and at Kill-Cannon Corner at Lincoln, is always waiting outside, a truly Gothic draught! ”

“ Into the old buildings they had left came a great day-school, the Merchant Taylors', so there are still about 500 boys as well as the old pensioners in the London Charter House.
What a strange history the Charter House has! What changes it has seen! The convent with its silent monks, the great house with its state and royal visitors, the noisy school, the peaceful home of the old pensioners,—the Charter House bears traces of them all. For here are still the courts and cloisters and the chapel of the monks, and the stateroom of the great noble ”

“ Sometimes{58} they are in accord with the clergy; sometimes in opposition; and at one moment make large donations to the Church, at another rob it. To-day they fight for their King abroad and on their Crusades, while Viscounts represent them at home. To-morrow they are home again, fighting among themselves, or trying to throw off their allegiance to their King. Counts of Chartres or their relatives mount the throne of England and the throne of France. ”

“ The crown lawyers said, “It is not so nominated in the bond; you have no right, standing under this corporation charter in London, to transfer your power.” Our fathers replied: “King Charles has granted us certain authority, but our charter does not bind us to exercise that authority in England; locality is not specified. We choose to vote that emigrants shall be freemen, and to summon a meeting beyond the Atlantic. You say this was not contemplated; but where is it forbidden? If you can quibble, so can we. If we have not the right, we will create it. ”

“ H. Hallam, The Middle Ages, chapter 8, part 2. "The Great Charter, although drawn up in the form of a royal grant, was really a treaty between the king and his subjects. ... It is the collective people who really form the other high contracting party in the great capitulation,--the three estates of the realm, not, it is true, arranged in order according to their profession or rank, but not the less certainly combined in one national purpose, and securing by one bond the interests and rights of each other, severally and all together. ”

“ Generally, also, throughout this period there is a tendency to substitute for arbitrary exactions and violence arrangements settled by charter and definite duties and rights. But it is only a tendency. The amelioration of life was only very gradual. Neither life nor property in the eleventh and twelfth century were, as a rule, what we should call secure. Take for an instance the behaviour of the sons of one Échambaud when they had a difference over the possession of some land with the Abbot of S. Père. ”

“ On the other side stood the barons of the kingdom, attended by a vast multitude, representing all other classes of the population. So completely was the arrogance of the king subdued, so hopeless appeared all resistance, that, with scarcely a word of remonstrance, John gave his assent to the document which, as the foundation of the liberties of England, is known to us by the name of Magna Charta—the Great Charter. ”

“ In the mean time, most of the barons were at London, where we left them, making holiday for the grant of Magna Charta, and pleasing themselves, that after so long oppression and Ægyptian bondage, the liberties of England were restored again in their days. They thought, likewise, that God had touch’d the King’s heart, and he was become a new man, and meant the good faith he had sworn, and flattered themselves that he would, from henceforward, inviolably observe their charters. ”

“ But with the example of the disastrous leadership of Peter the Hermit before his eyes, S. Bernard wisely declined. ‘Who am I,’ he wrote to the Pope, ‘that I should order the lines of battle, and go out before the faces of armed men, or what is more remote from my profession?’ Count Henry gained great renown in the Holy Land, and when at last, after fifty years of opposition to his King, the old Count died, he left to his valorous eldest son the County of Champagne, and Chartres and Blois passed to his second son, Thibault, owing homage to Henry. ”

“ How happy if they could have annihilated all our charters, and yet have been beloved, nay, deified by the people, as friends and advocates of their charters! What masterly politicians, to have made themselves nobles for life, and yet have been thought very sorry, that the two houses were denied the privilege of choosing the council! ”

“ But of infernal beasts and Vices there is at Chartres, so much is this the Church of Our Lady, a decided scarcity. Of the Virtues there are many: most celebrated is the proud statue of Liberty in the left bay of the north porch, in which some writers have seen a reference to the Communal freedom granted to the people by the Kings, but which is in reality only{126} one of the series of fourteen Heavenly Beatitudes as described by the mediæval theologians, which fill some of the rows of the vaulting of this bay. ”

“ We who are below, the common people, understand that France claims to protect and defend the Virgin of Chartres, as her chief vassal, and that this ostentatious profusion of lilies and castles is intended not in honour of France, but as a demonstration of loyalty to Notre Dame, and an assertion of her rights as Queen Regent of Heaven against all comers, but particularly against Pierre, the rebel, who has the audacity to assert rival rights in the opposite transept. ”

“ Here, then, we are face to face with a fundamental question of immense importance: Does the Great Charter really, as the orthodox traditional view so vehemently asserts, protect the rights of the whole mass of humble Englishmen equally with those of the proudest noble? ”

“ Most of the hereditary enemies of Henry were dead; all foreign influences were banished; the right of the nation to sound and good government was recognised by the charter itself. The general acquiescence in the policy of the administration was shown by the grant of a fifteenth of all movable property to the king, which was made conditional on the confirmation of the charter, and the national union was proved by the long list of prelates and magnates who attested it. ”