He had one opponent whom both interest and principle moved to lead the national demand for justice, which now took shape. That was Stephen Langton, the Archbishop of Canterbury, whose appointment by the Pope had been resisted by John. This worthy Saxon successor of Anselm and Becket had hunted out in the garret of a monastery a copy of the charter which Henry I, in the days of his honeymoon with his Saxon wife, had granted to his people; he had called together the barons and bishops, and proposed that John be made to renew that bill of rights, and they had all laid their hands on the high altar of St. Edmondsbury and sworn to make him do so, by arms if need be. Christmas Day, 1214, was grandly celebrated, for then the burly knights in armor came to John in London Temple and made their demand. The crafty king asked time to consider of it, and to study the document. “How long?” demanded Langton. “By Easter you shall have my answer,” promised the king. He employed the interval in begging the Pope to order Langton to cease his opposition, which the Pope did, and the archbishop did not. On the contrary, Langton gave to the barons’ movement religious sanction and the title “The Army of God and Holy Church,” thus neutralizing the moral and spiritual influence of John’s only supporter, Rome. John tried to buy off the opposition with promises, but no one would trust the champion prevaricator of the age. He sent out proclamations to all bailiffs to put down his enemies, but everybody took pride in being his enemy, so there was no one to execute the writs. He made a great pretense of going on a crusade and took the cross, but even that all-compelling appeal was laughed at. John a crusader! See how necessary it was that this king should have been so bad that no one would trust or believe him, even with the Pope at his back and the cross in his hands. We of this country and time—all mankind, in fact, have to thank John for all this resistance, for the more he struggled and plotted and lied, the more they advanced their demands, so that by Easter “the Army of God and Holy Church” had a far different charter to offer from that they had sworn to before the last Christmas; like all nature at that spring-dawn, the charter had put out new shoots. Freedom, too, had come forth from the tomb.