IN THE BLEAKEST HOUR, HOPE
by Justin Sanders (an HCS parent)

     I’m responsible for [three young students’] Grammatical and Historical educations. At least for now. Usually the days are punctuated by small victories when I see one of their faces light up in recognition of me calling their name. Most of the time, really, I’m doing well to hold their attention for ten or fifteen minutes while I read to them their daily history lesson.
     This year it’s been all about England. The stories are well written and generally very interesting. Mostly they’ve depicted how the story of England is one long succession of one people after another invading that little island and taking over for a hundred or two hundred years. Today was different, though. Today blinded me with its brightness.
     Richard Coeur De Lion, the king so romanticised in Ivanhoe, was a shirker. Instead of taking his duty in England seriously, he ran off to fight in the Crusades and ended up imprisoned first in Austria and then in Germany. While he was gone, his wicked brother John took over the throne. It wasn’t that it was his place to do so, though. He stole it from the man Richard had appointed to run the country. During John’s usurped reign the English people suffered great hardship. Many were forced into the woods to live as robbers and theives. Remember that Robin Hood fella? But these times didn’t last forever. Richard was found, his ransom paid, and he returned to the throne.
     He was only in England for six months, though. He quickly headed to France to fight for more land and never returned. When he died while fighting in France, John murdered his nephew, Arthur, the rightful heir. John then proceeded to make a name for himself as the worst king in the history of England. His oppression of the people, his conniving, treachery, and evil are unmatched to this day.
     But…During the reign of John, the most wicked king in the history of all England, God saw fit to put into place the Magna Charta. No, John didn’t have a change of heart. He was forced into this by the archbishop and Barons.  But the very people who forced him into this – the Barons (largely Normans) – were also the historic oppressors of the English people. This body of laws is the foundation for the liberties of the western world. And without getting into how our liberties do or don’t exist today – When things were the worst, when the people were the most oppressed, out of their bleakest, most hopeless hour, God brought freedom. And it wasn’t just a little freedom. It was a whole river of it.

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