Perhaps, after all, it would have been better if the citizens had chosen Maud, for, as history shows, Stephen did not turn out to be a very good King. Another great decision that was made at a public meeting at St. Paul’s was the framing of Magna Charta--that great Charter which secured, for all time to come, justice and liberty to English freemen. In these old days, especially after the Normans came into the country, Kings were apt to think that might was right, and that they could do what they chose with their subjects. If a man displeased the King, or if he wanted to seize his land, he could simply throw him into prison and keep him there, sometimes until he died, without giving him even a trial. Then, too, if the Monarch wanted money, he simply forced the people to give it to him, and no one had any security that what was his to-day might not be the King’s to-morrow. When Henry I. came to the throne, he wanted to please the people, because he had an elder brother living, who had gone to the Crusades, and he was afraid that unless he gained the affection of his subjects before his brother came back, they might choose the latter to be King instead of him. So he granted them a Charter, promising not to seize any of their property, nor to tax them unduly, nor to touch any of the lands belonging to the Church. He did not keep those promises very well, however, and his successors, Stephen, and Henry, and Richard, and John, did not keep them at all; and by the middle of King John’s reign the country was in a very bad state indeed. No heed was given to the advice or wishes of the great nobles, who ought to have had a voice in the government of the country, while the common people were so oppressed and down-trodden that they were ready to rise in rebellion. And they would have done so if it had not been for the wisdom and prudence of two great men--Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury, and William Marshal, eldest son of the Earl of Pembroke. Stephen Langton was a foreigner, whom the Pope had sent to Canterbury, but he was a good man, a real ‘Father in God’ to his people, and he believed that he was set over them to look after their bodies as well as their souls. When he found out how down-trodden the poor folk of England were, he made up his mind that such a state of things should not continue. So he began to inquire into the laws, and he found out about this old Charter, which had been granted by Henry I., but had never been kept, and had long since been forgotten. The wise Archbishop did not say anything, but he quietly set to work to find a copy of this Charter. After some trouble he discovered one, hidden away among the papers of an old monastery. He then summoned all the chief people in the country to meet him at St. Paul’s Cathedral. That was one of the most memorable assemblies in English history. All the powerful Nobles and Barons, all the stately Bishops and Priors, all the sober Aldermen