P. 904. they came to this Concession That they would charge and burden themselves much for to have M. Charta to be honestly kept from that time forth hereafter without pettifogging Quirks which he had so often promised and sworn and bound himself to it under the strictest Ties that could be laid upon his Soul They demanded moreover to choose them a Justiciar Chancellor and Treasurer by the Common Council of the Realm as was the Custom from antient times and was just who likewise should not be removed but for manifest Faults and by the Common Council and Deliberation of the Realm called together in Parliament For now there were so many Kings in England that the antient Heptarchy seemed to be revived You might have seen Grief in the Peoples Countenances For neither the Prelates nor the Nobles knew how to hold fast their Proteus I mean their King although he should have granted them all this Because in every thing he transgresses the Bounds of Truth and where there is no Truth no certainty can be had It was told them likewise by the Gentlemen of the Bedchamber who were most inward with the King that he would by no means grant them their desire about the Justiciar Chancellor and Treasurer Moreover the Prelates were bloodily grieved about their Tenth which they promised conditionally and now were forced to pay absolutely the Church being used like a Servant-Maid The Nobles were wounded with the Exaction which hung over their heads and were bewildred At last they all agreed to send a Message to the King in the name of the whole Parliament that the business should be deferred till Michaelmas That in the mean time they might have trial of the King's Fidelity and Benignity that he proving thus perhaps towards them and their Patience in the keeping the Charter so many times promised and so many times bought out might turn again and deservedly incline their Hearts towards him and they as far as their Power would extend would obediently give him a Supply Which when the King did not like and by giving no Answer did not agree to it the Parliament after many fruitless Debates day after day from morning to night thus broke up and the Nobles of England now made ignoble went home then the Parliament did not live at Court in those days in the greatest desolation and despair In the same year arrived Alienor the King of Spain's Sister whom Prince Edward had married with such a Retinue of Spaniards as look'd like an Invasion who with great Pomp and all sorts of publick Rejoicings were received at London P. 911. tho with the scorn and laughter of the common People at their Pride But grave Persons and Men of Circumspection pondering the Circumstances of things fetch'd deep sighs from the bottom of their hearts to see all Strangers so much in request and the Subjects of the Realm reputed as vile which they took for a token of their irreparable Ruin At the same time there was the worst news that could be of a Legat a latere coming over armed with Legantine Power who was ready prepared in all things to second the King in the destruction of the People of England and to noose all Gainsayers and Opposers of the Royal Will which is a tyrannical one and to hamper them all in the Bonds of an Anathema Moreover it terrified both the Prelates and Nobles and sunk them into a bottomless Pit of desperation to see that the King by sueh unspeakable craftiness had brought in so many Foreigners dropping in one after another and by degrees had drawn into confederacy with him many and almost all the principal Men in England as the Earls of Glocester Warren Lincoln and Devonshire and very many other Noblemen and had so impoverished the natural born Subjects to inrich his Foreign Kindred and Relations that in case the body of the Realm should have thoughts of standing for their Right and the King were against them they would have no power to restrain the King and his Foreigners or be able to contradict them As for Earl Richard who is reckoned our greatest Nobleman he stood neutral In like manner there were others not daring to mutter or speak within their Teeth The Archbishop of Canterbury who ought to be like a Shield against the Assaults of the Enemy was engaged in secular Affairs beyond Sea taking little care of his Flock in England The magnanimous Patriots and hearty Lovers of the Realm namely the Archbishop of York Robert Grosthead Bishop of Lincoln Warin de Munchemsil and many others were dead and gone In the mean while the Poitovin Kindred of the King with the Provincials and now the Spaniards and the Romans are daily enriched with the Revenues as fast as they arise and are promoted to Honors while the English are repuls'd In this lamentable state was the Nation again within two years after the so much magnified Confirmation of their Charter which was indeed performed with the greatest solemnity possible for Heaven and Earth were called to witness it The year following tho England still lay under oppression yet the Welsh were resolved to bear the Tyranny no longer but stood up for their Country and the maintenance of their Laws and baffled several Armies first of the Prince and afterwards of the King They were ten thousand Horse and many more Foot who entring into a mutual Association swore upon the Gospels that they would manfully and faithfully fight to the death for the Liberties of their Country and their antient Laws and declared they had rather die with Honour than spin out a wretched life in Disgrace At which manly Action of theirs says the Historian â— 938. the English ought deservedly to blush who lay down their neck to every one that sets his foot upon it and truckle under Strangers as if they were a sorry diminutive timoursom little people and a riffraff of scoundrels It is very hard that the English Nation must at the same time suffer by the Welsh in their Excursions upon our Borders and withal be continually persecuted by this Historian and upbraided with the Welsh Valour But so it is that he cannot mention any English Grievance but he twits us with the Welsh Baldwin of Rivers by the procurement of our Lady the Queen P. 944. marries a certain Foreigner a Savoyard of the Queen's Kindred Now to this Baldwin belongs the County of Devon and so day by day the noble Possessions of the English are devolved upon Foreigners which the faint-hearted English either will not know or dissemble their Knowledg whose Cowardice and supine Simplicity is reproved by the Welsh Stoutness In the next Passage we have an account of the King 's coming to St. Albans in the beginning of March and staying there a week where all the while this Historian was continually with him at his Table in his Palace and Bedchamber P. 945. at which time he very diligently and friendly directed this
of Peace and for the Advancement and Honour of his Realm he would willingly grant them the Laws and Liberties which they desired leaving to the Barons to appoint a convenient Time and Place for the Performance They very gladly set the King a day to meet the 15 th of Iune at Running-mead betwixt Stanes and Windsor an antient place for the meeting of Parliaments The King and the Lords accordingly met and their Parties sitting asunder and keeping to their own side treated of the Peace and the Liberties a good while There were present as it were of the King's Party the Arch-bishop and about 30 principal Persons more whom Matthew Paris names but says he they that were on the Barons side were past reckoning seeing the whole Nobility of England gathered together in a Body seem'd not to fall under number At length after they had treated in several sorts the King seeing the Barons were too powerful for him made no difficulty to grant them the Laws and Liberties under-written and to confirm them in his Charter in this manner P. 255. Here follows Magna Charta in Mat. Paris And because there was not room for the Liberties and free Customs of the Forest in the same Parchment they were contained in another Charter de Foresta And then follows the security for them both After this the King sent his Letters Patents to all the Sheriffs in England to cause all persons of what condition soever to swear That they would observe these foresaid Laws and Liberties and to the utmost of their power distress the King by seizing his Castles and otherwise streighten him to the execution and performance of all things contained in the Charter At last the Parliament being ended the Barons returned to London with their Charters Thus have I given you a short view of the noble Conduct of the Barons in their manner of obtaining the Confirmation of their Charter from K. Iohn The restitution of Magna Charta you may call it for the Birth of it you see it was not What I have recited is undoubted History and Record and clear matter of Fact And I have confined my self only to these three last years in which the Barons were in pursuit of this business and took the quickest Steps towards it and above all were put into a right Method by the advice of Stephen Langton the Archbishop to claim their Estate with the Writings of it in their hand For above a dozen years before in the 3 d of this King's Reign upon a Summons of his to the Earls and Barons to attend him with Horse and Arms into Normandy they held a Conference together at Leicester and by general consent they send him word Dan. p. 129. That unless he would render them their Rights and Liberties they would not attend him out of the Kingdom But that impotent demand of their Liberties by the by did them no good but exposed them to still more and more intolerable Oppressions They should have gone to him according to their Summons they should not have sent Not to mention that his Faith was plighted by the Arch-bishop Hubert William Lord Marshal E. of Pembroke Geoffrey Fitz-Peter Chief Justiciar of England whom he sent as his Commissioners to proclaim and keep the Peace immediatly after the death of his Brother Richard That the Earl John would restore all men their Rights Paris p. 196. This was done at an Assembly of the Peers at Northampton before his coming out of Normandy to be crowned Sub tali igitur conventione Comites Barones Comiti Iohanni Fidelitatem contra omnes homines juraverunt Upon these Terms and no otherwise the Earls and Barons swore Fealty to him Which made K. Iohn so much rejoice at Geoffrey Fitz-Peter's Death and swear That then and not before he was King and Lord of England P. 243. Pactis contraire For from thenceforward says Paris he was more at liberty to contravene his Oaths and Covenants which with this Geoffrey he had made sore against his will and loose himself from the Bonds of the Peace he had enter'd into Now these Pacts and Covenants are clearly that before his Coronation which I have just now recited and at this Parliament at St. Albans Anno 1213. not a year before this great Man's Death Where the King's Peace was publickly declared to all his People and it was strictly commanded in the King's behalf That the Laws of his Great Grandfather H. 1. should be kept by the whole Realm and all unjust Laws abolished In both these Affairs he transacted for the King having in this last together with the Bp. of Winchester the Government of the Kingdom committed to him the King being then absent in his way to France Well but now the Barons at last have their long lost Rights restored and confirmed to the universal Joy of the Nation which is soon overcast For K. Iohn immediatly resolves to undo all that he had done being prompted thereto not only by his own arbitrary tyrannical Disposition but also by his foreign Mercenaries whom he had long made his Favourites and Confidents while he look'd upon his own natural Subjects as Abjects The Flanders Ruyters or Cavaliers who now by Magna Charta were expresly and by name order'd to be expelled the Kingdom as a Nuysance to the Realm these being grown his saucy Familiars so followed him with Derision and Reproaches for unkinging himself by these Concessions and making himself a Cypher and our Soveraign Lord of no Dominions a Slave to his Subjects and the like that they made him stark Bedlam And being given over to Rage and Revenge he privatly retires to the Isle of Wight where as Paris says he provides himself of St. Peter's two Swords He sends to the Pope whom he bribes with a large Sum of Money besides his former Surrender of the Kingdom to cancel and annul M. Charta and to confound it with his Apostolical Authority and withal to excommunicate the Barons for it And at the same time he sends the Bp. of Worcester Ld. Chancellor of England the Bp. of Norwich and several other Persons to all neighbouring Countries to gather together all the Foreign Forces they could by promises of Lands and Possessions and if need were to make them Grants under the Great Seal and to bring them all to Dover by Michaelmas That 3 Months he spent Incognito in and about the Isle of Wight coasting and skulking about and sometimes exercising Piracy out at Sea so that it was not then known where he was nor what was become of him but thus he whiled away the time contemplating his Treason and waiting for the incomprehensible Enemy-Friends he had sent for Hostiles amicos amicabiles hostes p. 265. I know not whether this Desertion and not providing for the Government in his Absence and sending the Great Seal of England upon such an Errand out of the Realm may not with some men amount to a modern Abdication But
Composition was made by both Parties in an Island in the Thames near the Town of Stains Septemb. 11. A. D. 1217. So that within two years and three months time M. Charta was granted and destroyed and damnd by the Pope and revived and renewed again by fresh Oaths and even of the Pope's Legate I shall very briefly shew what fate it had in H. 3. time for I do not remember any fighting about the Confirmation of it in any succeeding Reign wherein I shall only recite the matter of Fact reserving the matter of Right till anon In the fifth year of his Reign he was crowned again at Westminster and three years after which was the eighteenth of his age at a Parliament at London he was desired by the Archbishop and the other Lords to confirm the Liberties and free Customs for which the War was first moved against his Father And as the Archbishop evidently shew'd the King could not decline the doing of it because upon the departure of Lewis out of England he himself had sworn and all the Nobility of the Realm with him that they would observe all the said Liberties and have all others observe them Upon which William Brewer who was one of the P. Council made answer in behalf of the King saying The Liberties you desire ought not in justice to be observed because they were extorted by violence Which Speech the Archbishop taking very ill rebuked him saying William quoth he if you loved the King you would not be a hindrance to the Peace of the Kingdom But the King seeing the Archbishop going to be very angry said We have all of us sworn to these Liberties and we are all bound to observe what we have sworn And forthwith taking advice upon it sent his Letters to the Sheriffs of every County to cause twelve Knights or Legal Men to make an Inquisition upon Oath what were the Liberties of England in the time of K. Henry his Grandfather and to make him a return of it by a certain day This vowing and afterwards making inquiry was ill resented and was one of the false Shifts which were so peculiar to that Prince The motion of the Archbishop was so manifestly necessary for the settling the young King in his Throne that our Historian Daniel says it was impiously oppugned by William Brewer Dan. p. 151. and indeed the reflections he makes on the whole passage are very remarkable from the Pen of a Courtier I only observe that William Brewer was the fittest Interpreter of an Arbitrary Prince's mind for he was an old arbitrary Instrument and one of K. Iohn's Generals in his barbarous Invasion and tho he himself had since sworn to M. Charta that made no matter for such false Changes and Conversions always turn Cat again as soon as they find Game and spy a Mouse The next year the King being declared by the Pope's Bull of full age and Lewis being now King of France and keeping possession of all the King's Dominions beyond the Seas at a Parliament at Westminster he desired a Fifteenth for the recovery of them And tho many of the Earls and Barons had thereby lost their Inheritances as well as the King yet the whole Assembly agreed in this Answer That they would freely grant the King what he desired but upon condition if he would grant them their long desired Liberties The King out of covetousness of this Aid has Charters presently written and sealed and sent to all the Counties and an Oath in writing for all Men to swear to them while Richard the King's Brother because they had hitherto been ill kept cried out they were cozening Charters Matt. Paris says he therefore forbears to recite the Tenor of these Charters because he had done it before in K. Iohn's Reign for the Charters of both Kings were alike In nullo inveniuntur dissimiles Two years the Land rested injoying their Liberties which were punctually kept till the King at a Parliament at Oxford declared himself to be of full age and took that occasion to have a new Seal and to cancel the Charter of the Forests as granted in his Minority and to cause all that would enjoy the benefit of that Charter to take out particular Charters under his new Seal for which they paid exorbitant Fines such as his Chief Justiciar pleased Upon this and a great Oppression of his Brother Richard soon after the Earls and Barons were up in Arms and had drawn together a great Body of Men at Stanford from whence they send him a Message in very big words Nimis ampullosis That he forthwith make amends to his Brother for the Injury done him the fault of which they lay upon the Justiciar and that he should immediately restore the Charters of the Forest which he had cancel'd at Oxford and send them to them sealed grievously denouncing That otherwise they would compel him with their Swords Whereupon he called a Parliament to Northampton and gave them full satisfaction to their Demands Six years after the Barons had an outragious Violation of M. Charta to complain of and an intolerable Grievance to the Nation For the King had not only filled the Offices of his Court with Poitovins to the great Oppression of his natural Subjects but also had invited in two thousand Poitovins and Brittons with which he garisoned his Castles Upon this Earl Richard the Marshal of the Kingdom taking several of the Lords along with him went boldly to the King and openly reproved him that because by evil Counsel he had called in Poitovin Foreigners to the Oppression of his Realm and natural born Subjects of the Realm of their Laws likewise and Liberties wherefore he humbly besought the King that he would speedily reform such Abuses as these which were the imminent destruction of his Crown and Realm Moreover he affirmed that if the King refused to amend this Proceeding both he and the rest of the Noblemen of the Kingdom would so long continue to withdraw themselves from his Councils as he consorted with Foreigners To this Peter Bishop of Winchester who was prime Minister made answer That it was very lawful for our Lord the King to call in what Foreigners he pleased for the defence of his Kingdom and Crown and even such and so many as might be able to compel his proud and rebellious Subjects to their Duty The Earl Marshal and the Lords went away very much dissatisfied with this Answer and promised to one another that in this Cause which concerned the whole Nation they would manfully fight it out to the separation of their Souls from their Bodies In the mean while the Bishop of Winchester and his Accomplices had so far perverted the King's heart to hate and despise the English Nation that he studied the extirpation of them all manner of ways and by a few at a time invited over so many Legions of Poitovins that they almost filled all England with Troops of which wherever the King went he still