He was now an old man, firm, as we shall see in his after-course, to recall the government to the path of freedom and law, but shrinking from a strife which might bring back the anarchy of Stephen's day, and looking for reforms rather in the bringing constitutional pressure to bear upon the king than in forcing them from him by arms.
[Sidenote: John yields] But cling as such men might to John, they clung to him rather as mediators than adherents.

Their sympathies went with the demands of the barons when the delay which had been granted was over and the nobles again gathered in arms at Brackley in Northamptonshire to lay their claims before the King.

Nothing marks more strongly the absolutely despotic idea of his sovereignty which John had formed than the passionate surprise which breaks out in his reply.

"Why do they not ask for my kingdom ?" he cried.

"I will never grant such liberties as will make me a slave!" The imperialist theories of the lawyers of his father's court had done their work.