But the very moment that closes the ecclesiastical quarrel begins a new one--the baronial quarrel, which opens the way for the vindication of national liberty and the consolidation of constitutional life, as typified by Magna Carta. To realize this we must glance back for a moment to the beginning of the reign, and recur to the negotiations which Archbishop Hubert had had with the earls before he obtained their consent to receive John as king, and the promise he had made that all their lawful demands should be satisfied. What those demands were we cannot tell exactly; probably they wanted the custody of their own castles and some other privileges of which they had been deprived by the strong government of the late king, for he had no doubt availed himself of every plea to restrict their forest privileges and perhaps to extend the royal right of wardship. It is from Magna Carta itself, rather than from the historians who have told the story, that we gather the nature of their grievances. The promises made at Northampton in 1199 had never been fulfilled; in 1201, when the earls repeated their demands, John replied by laying his hands on their castles and by compelling them to surrender their heirs as pledges of their good behaviour. Matters had after that gone on from bad to worse. Not content with insisting on the feudal service of the knights, he had increased the rate of carucage and scutage, the two great imposts that affected the land, and multiplied the occasions of the exaction. Year after year he had collected his forces as if for a French war, had brought them to the coast at great expense, and then exacted money from the barons as the price of their discharge. He had not led them to battle; he had let Normandy fall out of his hands, he had spoiled them and put them to shame, implicating them in his own cowardice. Year after year taxation increased, whilst the king and the kingdom became more really helpless; for all Englishmen hated his hosts of mercenaries, and distrusted his project of creating a fleet which, far more than any national army would be at his own absolute disposal. And this went on until, in 1207, he began to plunder the clergy, thus giving a respite to the people and the barons. Whilst the king could maintain himself by confiscation and plunder of the clergy he abstained from confiscation and plunder of the laity; and this partly accounts for the equanimity with which the interdict was borne. Men acquiesced in the loss of their religious rights so long as they were in a manner compensated by immunity from taxation. The interdict, too, paralyzed national action. John was unable to conduct anything like a great war as long as that blight lay upon the land; he could attack Wales or Ireland or Scotland, but he could not attack France, under the circumstances; and he was not by any means idle now, what few military successes he did achieve being won against the Irish. For the nation