The Christmas of 1214 is memorable in English history as the festival at which the barons demanded from King John that document which as the foundation of our English liberties is known to us by the name of _Magna Charta_, that is, the Great Charter. John's tyranny and lawlessness had become intolerable, and the people's hope hung on the fortunes of the French campaign in which he was then engaged. His defeat at the battle of Bouvines, fought on July 27, 1214, gave strength to his opponents; and after his return to England the barons secretly met at St. Edmundsbury and swore to demand from him, if needful by force of arms, the restoration of their liberties by charter under the king's seal. Having agreed to assemble at the Court for this purpose during the approaching festival of Christmas they separated. When Christmas Day arrived John was at Worcester, attended only by a few of his immediate retainers and some foreign mercenaries. None of his great vassals came, as was customary at Christmas, to offer their congratulations. His attendants tried in vain to assume an appearance of cheerfulness and festivity; but John, alarmed at the absence of the barons, hastily rode to London and there shut himself up in the house of the Knights Templars. On the Feast of the Epiphany the barons assembled in great force at London and presenting themselves in arms before the King formally demanded his confirmation of the laws of Edward the Confessor and Henry I. At first John assumed a bold and defiant air and met the barons with an absolute refusal and threats; but, finding the nobles were firm, he sank to the meanness of subterfuge, and pleaded the necessity of time for the consideration of demands so weighty. With some reluctance the barons granted the delay, and ultimately, in 1215, the tyrant bowed to the inevitable, called the barons to a conference at Runnymede, and there signed the Great Charter, whose most important clauses protect the personal liberty and property of every freeman in the kingdom by giving security from arbitrary imprisonment and unjust exactions. [16] "Short History of the Norman Conquest." [17] Wassail and Drinkhail are both derived from the Anglo-Saxon. They were the common drinking pledges of the age. Wassail is equivalent to the phrase, "Your health," of the present day. Drinkhail, which literally signifies "drink health," was the usual acknowledgment of the other pledge. The carol from which the verses are quoted was evidently sung by the wandering minstrels who visited the castles of the Norman nobility at the festive season of Christmas. [18] Grattan. [Illustration] CHAPTER V. CHRISTMAS, FROM MAGNA CHARTA TO THE END OF THE WARS OF THE ROSES. (1215-1485.)