Langton was too resolute a statesman, and his conception of the primacy of Canterbury was too high for any turning back from the work he had set himself to accomplish.

The rights of election in the Church were important, but the restoration of justice and order and the ending of tyranny were, in his eyes, hardly less important.

John, who had been at war in France, returned defeated from his last attempt to recover for the Crown the lost Angevin provinces, to face a discontent that was both wide and general.

The people, and in especial the barons and knights whom for fourteen years John had robbed, insulted, and spurned, and whose liberties he had trampled upon, were ready at last under wise leadership to end the oppression.
In November, 1214, the Archbishop saw that the time was come for action, and again the barons met in council.

Before the high altar in the Abbey Church of St.Edmundsbury they swore that if the King sought to evade their demand for the laws and liberties of Henry I.'s charter, they would make war upon him until he pledged himself to confirm their rights in a charter under royal seal.