his Heir and gave him and his Heirs the Realm of England Bromton Col. 1â—38 Comites etiam Barones mei Ligium Homagium Duci fecerunt salva mea fidelitate quamdiu vixero regnum tenuero simili lege quod si ego a praedictis recederem omnino a servitio meo cessarent quousque errata corrigerem Their Duty to him ceas'd 'till he mended his Fault and returned again to keep his Covenant Quousque Errata corrigat ad praedictam pactionem observandam redeat Col. 1â—39 Paulo infra There is no need of these words at length at the end of every Charter or Petition of Right in case it be broken which we find in the close of Hen. III's Charter In Archiv London Anno Regni 42. Liceat omnibus de Regno nostro contra nos insurgere ad gravamen nostrum opem operam dare ac si nobis in nullo tenerentur All the men in our Realm may lawfully rise up against us and annoy us with might and main as if they were under no Obligation to us Because in the Polish Coronation Oath which likewise is in words at length we have a plain Hint why they had better be omitted an supprest Quod si sacramentum meum violavero quod absit Incolae hujus Regni nullam nobis obedientiam praestare tenebuntur And in case I break my Oath which God forbid the Inhabitants of this Realm shall not be bound to yield me any Obedience Now this God forbid and the harsh Supposition of breaking an Oath at the very making of it is better omitted when it is for every bodies ease rather to suppose that it will be faithfully kept especially seeing that in case it be unhappily broken the very natural Force and Virtue of a Contract does of it self supply that Omission Neither is it practised in Articles of Agreement and Covenants under Hand and Seal betwixt Man and Man to make a special provision that upon breach of Covenants they shall sue one another either at Common Law or in Chancery because this implies that one of them shall prove a Knave and dishonest but when that comes to pass I am sure Westminster Hall cannot hold them In like manner the Barons after they had born with K. Iohn's Breach of Covenant very much too long swore at last at the High Altar at St. Edmondsbury M. Paris p. 253. That if he refused them their Liberties they would make War upon him so long as to withdraw themselves from their Fidelity to him till such time as he confirm'd their Laws and Liberties by his Charter And afterwards at the Demand of them they say that which is a very good Reason for their Resolve That he had promised them those Antient Laws and Liberties and was already bound to the observation of them by his own proper Oath So that the Pope was quite out when he says the Barons set at nought and broke their Oath of Fidelity to K. Iohn for they only helped him to keep his The next thing objected against the Barons is this That they who were Vassals presumed to raise Arms against their Lord and Knights against their King which they ought not to have done altho he had unjustly oppressed them And that they made themselves both Iudges and Executors in their own Cause All which is very easily answered For 1. It was always lawful for Vassals to make War upon their Lords if they had just Cause So our Kings did perpetually upon the Kings of France to whom they were Vassals all the while they held their Territories in that Kingdom And by the Law of England an inferiour Vassal might fight his Lord in a weighty Cause even in Duell The Pope seems here willing to depress the Barons with low Titles that he may the better set off the Presumption of their Proceedings but before I have ended I shall shew what Vassals the Barons were I should be loath to say that the Kings of England were not all along as good Men as their Lords of France or that the Barons of England were not good enough to assert their Rights against any body but this I do say that it was always lawful for Vassals to right themselves even while they were Vassals and without throwing up their Homage and Fealty For that was never done till they declared themselves irreconcileable Enemies and were upon terms of Defiance Thus the Kings of England always made War in defence of their Rights without throwing up their Homage and Fealty till that last bitter enraged War of Hen. 2. wherein he had that ill success as broke his Heart and forced him to a dishonourable Peace the Conclusion of which he outliv'd but three days Amongst other things he did homage to the King of France because in the beginning of this War he had rendred up his Homage to him M. Paris takes notice of it as an extraordinary thing and I do not remember it done before Quia in principio hujus guerrae homagium reddiderat Regi Franciae p. 151. The same was practised by H. 3. toward that Great Man Richard the Marshal he sent him a Defiance by the Bishop of St. David's into Wales Upon which the Marshal tells Friar Agnellus the King's Counsellor in that long Conference before mentioned Vnde homo suus non fui sed ab ipsius Homagio per ipsum absolutus This was reciprocal from the Lord to the Vassal or from the Vassal to the Lord as he found cause And therefore King Iohn's Vassals who are here represented as if they were food for Tyranny and bound by their places to be unjustly oppressed for so the Pope allows the case I say these Vassals if they had been so minded instead of being contented with a Charter at Running-Mead might soon have been quite off of K. Iohn by resigning their Homage to him This K. Edw. the Second's Vassals did in manner and form by the Mouth of William Trussel a Judg in these words Knyghton col 2549. Ego Willielmus Trussel vice omnium de terrâ Angliae totius Parliamenti procurator tibi Edwarde reddo Homagium prius tibi factum extunc diffido te privo omni potestate regiâ dignitate nequaquam tibi de caetero tanquam Regi pariturus I William Trussel in the name of all men of the Land of England and of the whole Parliament Procurator resign to thee Edward the Homage formerly made to thee and henceforward I defy thee and prive thee of all Royal Power and Dignity and shall never hereafter be tendant on thee as King This was the standing Law long before the time of K. Iohn's Barons for the Parliament in the 10 th of Rich. 2. send the King a solemn Message that * Knyghton col 2683. Habent enim ex Antiquo statuto de facto non longe retroactis temporibus experienter quod dolendum est habito si Rex ex maligno consilio quocunque
which were not supported by Reason nay therein I should do injury both to himself and to that Iustice which he ought to maintain and exercise towards his Subjects And I should give a bad Example to all Men of deserting Iustice and the prosecution of Right for the sake of an erroneous Will against all Iustice and to the injury of the Subject for hereby it would appear that we had more love for our worldly Possessions than for Righteousness it self But I wrong the Discourse by singling any particulars out of it The King kept his Christmas at Glocester with a very thin Court the late Rout at Grosmund Castle having scattered them And the morrow after Iohn of Monmouth a Nobleman one of the King's Warriours in Wales attempting to surprize the Marshal was entirely defeated with the loss of a great number of Poitovins and others himself narrowly escaping which his Estate did not for the Marshal immediately burnt and destroyed it The same did the other exiled Lords by all the King's Counsellors in those parts for they had laid down amongst themselves this laudable general Rule That they would hurt no body nor do them any damage but only the evil Counsellors of the King by whom they had been driven into Banishment and used in the same kind And a week after Twelftide the Marshal and Leoline entered the King's Lands and laid them waste as far as Shrewsbury the King and Bishop Peter being still at Glocester but not having strength to oppose them they retired to Winchester Bnt the King's Heart was so hardned against the Marshal by the evil Counsel that he made use of that when the Bishops admonished him to make peace with the Marshal who fought for the Cause of Iustice he made answer Qui pro Justiciâ decertabat That he never would make peace with him unless he would acknowledg himself a Traitor with a Halter about his neck When the Bishop of Winchester and the other evil Counsellors of the King saw all their measures broken and the Poitovins thus cut off by the Marshal despairing ever to overcome him by force of Arms they fell to plotting and laying a train for his life which was by a Letter sent into Ireland to this effect Whereas Richard late Marshal of the King of England for his manifest Treason was by Judgment of the said King's Court banished the Realm and for ever outed of all the Patrimony and Possessions he had and yet remains in rebellion These are therefore to require you that if he should chance to come into Ireland you take care to seize him and bring him to the King dead or alive and for your care herein the King grants all the Inheritance of all the late Marshal's Lands and Possessions in Ireland which are now fallen to his disposal to be shared amongst you And for this Promise of the King to be made good to you We all by whose Counsel the King and Kingdom are governed do make our selves Sureties provided you fail not in the Premises This Writing was directed to Maurice Fitz Gerald the King's Justiciar in Ireland and several other great Men and some that were Leigemen to the Marshal but faithless And after this Writing of unheard of Treason was framed though the King knew nothing of the Contents of it yet they compelled him to put his Seal and they to the number of eleven put to their Seals and so sent it over This wrought with the Irish great Men according to the wish of the evil Counsellors for out of covetousness they immediately entred into the Conspiracy and privately sent word back That if the King's Promise were confirmed to them under the Great Seal they would do their utmost to effect the business Whereupon the said Counsellors with a treasonable Violence surreptitiously get the Great Seal from the Bishop of Chichester who did not consent to this fraud and so sent a Charter wherein every particular Man's share is exprest under the Great Seal As soon as this damnable Writing arriv'd in Ireland the Conspirators took an Oath to accomplish the thing and in order to it raised an Army wherewith they invaded his Lands and took some of his Castles that by these Injuries they might provoke him and draw him into Ireland While this Irish Plot went on at Candlemas the King held a Parliament at Westminster where he grievously accused several of the Bishops and chiefly Alexander of Chester for holding Correspondence with the Marshal and for endeavouring to depose him from the Throne of the Kingdom The said Bishop to clear himself and the rest of the Bishops immediately excommunicated all those who had any such wicked Thoughts against the King and all those who slandered the Bishops in that sort who were wholly sollicitous for the King's Honour and Safety Afterward in this Parliament Edmund Elect of Canterbury and the rest of the Bishops came to the King condoling the Desolation both of him and the Kingdom and as it were with one Heart and Mind and Mouth said Our Lord the King we tell you in the name of God as your Leigemen that the Counsel which you now have and use is neither sound nor secure but cruel and perilous both to you and the Realm of England We mean the Counsel of Peter Bishop of Winchester Peter Rivallis and their Accomplices First because they hate and despise the English Nation calling them Traitors and causing them all to be so termed thereby turning away your Heart from the love of your Nation and our Hearts and the Hearts of the Nation from you as appears by the Marshal than whom there is not a better Man in your Land whom by dispersing their lies on both sides they have perverted and alienated from you And by the same Counsel as theirs is your Father Iohn first lost the hearts of his Country and afterwards Normandy and other Lands exhausted his Treasure and almost lost England and never afterwards had Peace By the same Counsel several Disasters have happened to your Self which they there enumerate P. 369. They likewise tell him by the Faith in which they were bound to him that his Counsel was not for Peace but for breach of Peace and disturbance of the Land that his Counsellors might grow rich by the Troubles of the Nation and the Disherison of others which in peace they could not compass Amongst the Items of their present Grievances which it would be too long here to recite this is one i.e. M. C. That these Counsellors confound and pervert the Law of the Land which has bin sworn and corroborated by Excommunication so that it is very much to be feared that they stand excommunicated and you for intercommuning with them And they conclude These things we faithfully tell you and before God we desire advise and admonish you that you remove this Counsel from you and as the Custom is in other Realms that you manage your Kingdom by your own faithful sworn
Counsellors and their Abettors and to the utmost of their Power remove them from the King Which when the King understood he betook himself with his Counsellors into the Tower his Son and the great Men abiding still without The next Christmas we find him still in the Tower with the Queen and his Counsellors that were neither profitable to him nor faithful Which Counsellors fearing to be assaulted got a Guard and kept close in the Tower At length by the Queen's means with much ado P. 991. some of the great Men were reconciled and made Friends with them When this was done the King ventured himself out of the Tower leaving the Command of it to Iohn Mansell his principal Counsellor and the richest Clergy-man in the World and went down to Dover where he entered the Castle which was neither offered him nor denied him And there the King found how he had been imposed upon when he saw a Castle so carefully guarded by a Guard of the Barons ly open to him When he went away he committed the Charge of that Castle to E. de Waleram He went likewise to Rochester Castle and several others and found Ingress and Regress at his Pleasure It is plain they only kept them for the King At that time the King thinking himself secure resolved openly to depart from his Oath of which the Pope had given him a Release He went therefore round about to several Cities and Castles resolving to take them and the whole Kingdom into his hands being encouraged and animated thereto because the King of France together with his Great Men had lately promised to assist him with a great Force Coming therefore to Winchester he turned his Justiciar and Chancellor that were lately instituted by the Parliament out of their Offices and created beneplacito new ones Which when the Barons heard they hastened with a great Power towards Winchester of which Iohn Mansell having timely notice went privately down to the King and sufficiently inform'd him of his Danger and fetcht him hastily back again to the Tower of London There the King kept his next Christmas with the Queen and his Counsellors A. D. 1263. R. 47. At which time it was greatly laboured both by the Bishops of England and the Prelates of France to make peace betwixt the King and his Barons and it came to this issue That the King and the Peers should submit themselves to the determination of the King of France both as to the Provisions of Oxford and the Spoils and Damages which had been done on both sides Accordingly the King of France calls a Parliament at Amiens and there solemnly gives sentence for the King of England against the Barons P. 992. Whereby the Statutes of Oxford Provisions Ordinances and Obligations were wholly annull'd with this Exception That by that Sentence he did in no wise intend to derogate at all from the antient Charter of John King of England which he granted to his Parliament or whole Realm Universitati concessae Which very Exception compelled the Earl of Leicester and all that had their Senses exercised to continue in their Resolution of holding firmly the Statutes of Oxford for they were founded upon that Charter Presently after this they all came home that had been present at the French Parliament the King of England the Queen Boniface Arch-bishop of Canterbury Peter of Hereford and Iohn Mansell who ceased not plotting and devising all the mischief they could against the Barons From that time things grew worse and worse for many great Men left the Earl of Leicester and his righteous Cause and went off perjur'd Henry Son to the King of the Romans having received the Honour of Tickhel which was given him by the Prince came to the Earl and said My Lord Earl I cannot any longer be engaged against my Father King of Germany my Uncle King of England and my other Relations and therefore with your good leave and licence I mean to depart but I will never bear Arms against you To whom the Earl chearfully replied Lord Henry I am not at all troubled about your Arms but for the Inconstancy which I see in you Therefore pray go with your Arms and if you please come back with your Arms for I fear them not At that time Roger de Clyfford Roger de Leibern Iohn de Vallibus Hamon le Estrange and many others being blinded with Gifts went off from their Fidelity which they had sworn to the Barons for the common good In commune If M. Paris had been alive he would have told us a piece of his mind concerning this false step of the Barons in putting their Coat to arbitration and submitting the English Laws to the determination of an incompetent Foreigner But we lost his noble Pen A. D. 1259. that is about 4 Years ago presently after the establishment of the Provisions at Oxford So that what has since follow'd is taken out of the Continuator of his History who out of Modesty has forborn to set his name as being unworthy as he says to unloose the Latchet of that venerable Man's Shoo. But we are told that it was William Rishanger who succeeded Mat. Paris in the same Imployment and prosecuted the History to the end of H. 3. I know not by what misfortune we have lost his Provisions of Oxford which p. 975. he says are written in his Additamenta for certain it was by no neglect or omission of his because he died with them upon his Heart For the last Passage but one that he wrote was the Death of Fulk Basset Bishop of London whom we saw above he taxed formerly upon the same account who says he was a noble Person and of great Generosity and if he had not a little before stagger'd in their common Provision he had been the Anchor and Shield of the whole Realm and both their Stay and Defence It seems his faultring in that main Affair was what Matthew could never forgive him alive nor dead And indeed this could not but come unexpectedly from such a Man who had been always firm and honest to that degree as to tell the King when he arbitrarily threatned him for some incompliance of his to turn him out of his Bishoprick Sir says he when you take away my Mitre I shall put on a Headpiece And therefore the Annals of Burton are a very valuable piece of Antiquity because they have supplied that defect and have given us both a Latin and French Copy of those Provisions It would be too large as well as beside my purpose to set them down In short whereas by M. Charta in K. Iohn's time there were 25 Barons whereof the Lord Mayor of London was one appointed to be Conservators of the Contents of that Charter with full power to distress the King in case Grievances upon notice given were not redressed within 40 days On the other hand in this Provision of Oxford which seems to be the easier as much as
was walled in and invironed Nor was any thing done in the Kingdom but as the Bishop of Winchester and this Rout of Poitovins ordered it The King then calls a Parliament to meet on Midsummer day at Oxford but the aforesaid associated Lords would not come at his Summons partly for fear of the lying in wait of these Foreigners and partly out of the Indignation which they conceived against the King for calling in Aliens in contempt of them Upon this it was judicially decreed that they should be summoned twice and thrice to try whether they would come or no. Here at this Assembly at Oxford Roger Bacon while he was preaching the Word of God before the King and the Bishops told him roundly That he would never enjoy any settled peace unless he removed the Bishop of Winchester and Peter Rivallis from his Councils And when others who were present protested the same thing the King began a little to recollect himself and encline to Reason and signified to the associated Barons that they should come to a Parliament Iuly 11. at Westminster and there by their advice he would rectify what was fit to be amended But when the Barons had heard that many Freebooters were called in by the King with Horses and Arms and that they had arrived by degrees and but a few at a time and could see no footsteps of Peace but likewise suspected the innate Treachery of the Poitovins they let alone going to the Parliament but they sent him word by solemn Messengers That setting aside all delay he should remove the Bishop of Winchester and all the Poitovins from his Court But in case he would not they all by the Common Council of the Kingdom would expel him and his evil Counsellors out of the Realm and proceed to the Creation of a new King The King was struck with this Message and the Court were very much concerned at it fearing lest the Error of the Son should be worse than his Father's who was very near being driven out of his Kingdom and making good the name which was given him by a kind of Presage of Iohn the Exile But Bishop Peter gave the King advice to make war upon these rebellious Subjects and to bestow their Castles and Lands upon the Poitovins who might defend the Realm of England from his Traitors bragging that he both could and would give deep and not scoundrel Counsel for time was when he had governed the Emperor's Council in the East and that his Wisdom was formidable both to the Saracens and to other Nations So the King returning again to the wrong first wreakt his Anger upon Gilbert Basset whom having seized a Mannor of his and he coming to claim his right he called Traitor and threatned if he did not get out of his Court to have him hang'd And he likewise commanded Richard Seward a warlike Knight that had married this Gilbert's Sister or Neice without his Licence as he said to be taken up And indeed being jealous of all the other noble and powerful Men of the Kingdom he required Hostages of them such and so many as might satisfy him that they would not rebel To the Parliament at Westminster Aug. 1. the Earls and Barons came armed and the Earl Marshal was on his way coming to it but going to lodg at his Sister's House who was Wife to Richard the King's Brother she advertised him of his danger and that he would be seized He being a Man of a noble Breast could not readily believe Woman's talk till she made it out and then night coming on he rid another way and never drew bit till he came well wearied into Wales There were many Earls and Barons at this Parliament but there was nothing done in it because of the absence of the Earl Marshal Gilbert Basset and some other Lords After this the King by the advice of the Bishop of Winchester gave summons to all that held of him by Knights service to be ready with their Horses and Arms at Glocester a week before Assumption day And when the Earl Marshal and many others that were associated with him would not come at that appointed time the King as if they had been Traitors caused their Houses to be set on fire their Parks and Ponds to be destroyed and their Castles to be besieged These that were said to be associated were very noble Persons and there were many others no mean Men that adhered to them All these did King Henry cause to be proclaimed Outlaws and banished Men without the Judgment of his Court and of their Peers and gave their Lands to the Poitovins thereby adding sorrow to sorrow and redoubling their Wounds He gave commandment likewise that their Bodies should be seized wherever they could be found within the Realm In the mean time Bishop Peter does what he can to weaken the Marshal's Party and corrupted the Earls of Chester and Lincoln with a thousand Marks cheap Lords to leave the Marshal and the cause of Justice and to be reconciled to the King and be of his side For as for Richard the King's Brother he was gone off from the Marshal some time before When the Marshal had heard all this he entred into a Confederacy with Lewellin Prince of Wales and other Peers of that Country who swore none of them would make Peace without the other Within a weeks time after the appointed Rendezvouz at Glocester there arrived at Dover many armed men from the parts beyond the Sea and Baldwin de Gysnes with a Force out of Flanders who came to the King at Glocester This Force with what he had before made a numerous Army with which he advanced to Hereford After this the King by the advice of Bishop Peter sends a Defiance to the Marshal by the Bishop of St. Davids and thereupon marches to make war upon him and lays siege to one of his Castles But when he had furiously assaulted it many days in vain and his Army wanted Provisions so that there was a necessity of raising the Siege the King grew ashamed of his Enterprize Whereupon he sent several Bishops to the Earl Marshal to desire him to save the King's Honour and that he might not be thought to have made a Siege to no purpose to surrender him the Castle upon these Conditions First That he would after fifteen days restore to the Earl Marshal the Castle again intire and in the same state it was And Secondly That in the mean time he would reform and amend all things that were amiss in the Kingdom by the advice of the Bishops who were his Sureties for the performance of these things And to perfect and compleat all this the King appointed the Marshal and the banished Lords to come to a Parliament which he meant to hold at Westminster the first Week after Michaelmas When the fifteen days were out from the time of the Marshals surrender of his Castle into the King's hands upon condition that after that Term he should
and maintaining the Rights of the Kingdom contained in that Charter and were in affirmance of it Whereby they that have been told the Barons Wars were a Rebellion may know better and every honest Man will find their Cause to be so just that if he had lived in those days he must have joined in it for so we did lately in the Fellow to it at our present Revolution It is well indeed for us that our Ancestors lived before us and with the Expence of their Blood recovered the English Rights for us and saved them out of the Fire otherwise we had been sealed up in Bondage and should have had neither any English Rights to defend nor their noble Example to justify such a Defence but should have been in as profound an Ignorance that ever there were any such Rights as the Barons themselves were of H. I's Charter For in all the steps the Barons took we followed them Did they take Arms for the security of their Liberties so did we Did they withdraw their Allegiance from an arbitrary and perjur'd King so did we Did they set another over his head and proceed to the Creation of a new King so did we And if we had miscarried in our Affair we had not been called Rebels but treated as such and the Bishop of London and all our Worthies had made but a Blue business of it without putting on the Prince of Orange's Livery And therefore it is great ingratitude in those that receive any Benefit or Protection by this happy Revolution to blemish the Cause of the Barons for it is the same they live by and as for those that had a hand in it to call the Barons Cause a Rebellion is utterly unaccountable and like Men that are not of their own side Leaving therefore the proper Work of reproaching and reviling both these as damnable Rebellions to the People at S. Germains and the harder work of proving them so I shall undertake the delightful Task of doing service to this present Rightful Government and at the same time of doing right to the Memory of our antient Deliverers to whom we owe all that distinguishes the Kingdom of England from that of Ceylon It had been wholly needless to have written one word upon this Subject if this Affair had ever been set in a true light as it lies in Antiquity or if our modern Historians had not given a false turn to so much of the matter of fact as they have related and ruin'd the Text by the Comment Mr. Daniel has done this very remarkably for after he has given us enough of this History to justify the Barons Proceedings and they had gained the Establishment of M. Charta Dan. p. 144. he begins his Remarks upon it in these words And in this manner though it were to be wished it had not been in this manner were recovered the Rights of the Kingdom Now tho if it had not been done in this manner it had not been done at all and tho he allows it to be the Recovery of their own the Rights of the Kingdom which one would think a very just and necessary work yet this shrug of a Wish leaves an Impression upon his Reader as if the way wherein they recovered them were unwarrantable On the other side King Iohn would not allow them to be the Rights of the Kingdom at no hand M. P. p. 254. but vain superstitious unreasoble Demands the Barons might as well ask him his Kingdom and he swore he would never grant them such Liberties as should make himself to be a Slave So that I have two things to shew 1 st That they were verily and indeed the Kingdom 's Rights and 2 ly That they were very fairly recovered and that the Barons were in the right both as to Matter and Substance and no way reprovable for Manner and Form The Charter of H. 1. was what the Barons went by and so must we where towards the latter end we find these words P. 56. Lagam Regis Edwardi vobis reddo cum illis emendationibus quibus Pater meus eam emendavit consilio Baronum suorum I Restore you the Law of King Edward with those Amendments my Father made to it by the advice of his Parliament Here was no new Grant he barely made Restitution and gave them back their own And so we find it in his Father's time Ingulphus p. 88. Ces sount les Leis les Custumes que le Reis Will. grentat a tut le puple de Engleterre apres le Conquest de la terre Ice les mesmes que le Reis Edward sun cosin tint devant lui He grants them the self-same Laws and Customs which his Cousin Edward held before him Or as Ordericus Vitalis a Norman has it p. 507. Anglis concessit sub Legibus perseverare patriis He granted to the English that they might persevere in the Laws of their Fathers So that in effect he granted English-men to be English-men to enjoy the Laws they were born to and in which they were bred their Fathers Laws and their Mother Tongue A Country-man would call this a Pig of their own Sow And yet this Grant by way of Charter and under Seal whereby he gave them their own and quitted all claim to it himself was lookt upon as the utmost Confirmation and Corroboration and the last degree of Settlement amongst the Normans And therefore tho K. William was too strong for his own Charter and shamefully broke it yet they covenanted with his Son Hen. 1. before they chose him King that as soon as he was crowned he should give them another which accordingly he did In the same manner they dealt with K. Stephen And this made them covenant after the same manner with K. Iohn before they admitted him to the Crown and so much insisted afterwards upon having his Charter and having their Liberties secured and fortified with his Seal Sigillo suo munitas as they termed it For in those days what was not under Seal was not thought good in Law and not long before in H. 2's time the Bishop of Lincoln in a Trial before the King was for setting aside all the Saxon Kings Charters granted to the Abby of St. Albans for want of a Seal till the King seeing a Charter of H. 1. which confirm'd them all Why here says he In vitis Abb. p. 79. is my Grandfather's Seal this Seal is the Seal of all the Original Charters as much as if it were affixed to every one of them Which wise decision of a young King was thought like Solomon's Judgment in finding out the true Mother For the St. Albans-men had no way of answering their Adversaries Objection That all Privileges that wanted Seals are void because they could not absolutely say there were no Seals in the Saxon times there being a Charter of Edward the Confessor granted to Westminster Abby with a Seal to it But they might easily have bethought themselves that