THE SECOND PART OF THE CONFUTATION OF THE Ballancing Letter CONTAINING AN Occasional Discourse In Vindication of Magna Charta LONDON Printed for A. Baldwin in Warwick-Lane M. DCC The PREFACE I Have seen several Objections published against the Former Part wherein if that Author could have shewn me any one Fault I would have thank'd him and mended it but I do not write Books for such as after a long search to find a Knot in a Bullrush make one That I may not give him nor any body else any Offence by my false Inferences cloudy Reasonings Mistakes or Misapplications whatsoever I shall barely set down two or three Quotations which are able to speak dispute argue and answer for Themselves The first is to shew that for a King of England to have standing Forces or Men at Arms is contrary to the English Constitution or else Mr. Bacon who has given us an excellent Book of it collected out of Mr. Selden's Manuscript Notes has strangely mistaken it For his own words upon Henry the Seventh's instituting a Guard of 50 Archers are these Bacon of the Laws and Government of England Part 2. p. 114. That Guard of his Person he only pretended as a Ceremony of State brought from the French Court and yet it is strange that it went so well down with a free People For that Prince that will keep Guards about his Person in the midst of his own People may as well double them into the pitch of an Army whensoever he pleases to be fearful and so turn the Royal Power of Law into Force of Arms. But it was the French Fashion and the King 's good hope to have all taken in the best sense This is so well known that the very Author himself of the Ballancing Letter has these words Page 3. lin 15. Any Man who would pretend to give a Iealousy of the Nation to the King and suggest that he could not be safe among them without he were environ'd with Guards and Troops as it was in the late Reigns ought to be abhorred by every true English man by every Man who loves Liberty and his Country My other Quotations are about an incidental Point which fell into my former Discourse concerning the Admission of Foreigners into England This according to the sense of all Antiquity is giving them our Country The words in K. John's Charter at Runningmead concerning them are these M. P. p. 261. Et nos amovebimus omnes alienigenas à terra Parentes omnes Girardi de Athies Engelardum scilicet Andream Petrum Gyonem de Chanceles Gyonem de Cigvini uxorem praedicti Girardi cum omnibus liberis suis Gaufridum de Martenni fratres ejus Philippum Marc fratres ejus G. nepotem ejus Falconem Flandrenses omnes ruptarios qui sunt ad nocumentum Regni Here K. John is to amo ve Aliens out of the Land both all and some as a Nusance to the Realm And to conclude my last Quotation is one of the Statutes made at Oxford 42 H. 3. founded upon K. John's Charter Knyghton Col. 2445. l. 50. and in pursuance of it Statuerunt etiam Quod omnes alienigenae cujuscunque conditionis existerent seu nationis confestim repatriarent sub poena membrorum vitae That all Aliens of whatsoever Condition they were or Nation should forthwith repair home under the penalty of Life and Limb. The Act is General but no body can say that it is an Act for a General Naturalization A VINDICATION OF Magna Charta IN order to this I shall first shew That Magna Charta is much elder than King Iohn's time and consequently that its Birth cannot be blemished with any thing that was done in his time tho his Confirmation of it had been really extorted by Rebellion Secondly That the Confirmations which were had and procured to it in King Iohn's and H. 3. time were far from being gained by Rebellion First of all The Contents of Magna Charta is the undoubted Inheritance of England being their Antient and Approved Laws so antient that they seem to be of the same standing with the Nation and so well approved De Laud. Leg. Aug. that Fortescue applauding our Laws triumphs in this That they passed thro all the British Roman Danish Saxon and Norman times with little or no alteration in the main Now says he if they had not been liked by these People they would have been altered Accordingly in this last Norman Revolution King William the First falsely and flatteringly called the Conqueror swore to the inviolable Observation of them under this Title of the Good Antient and Approved Laws of the Realm and particularly and by name K. Edward's Laws So antient is the Matter and Substance of Magna Charta Secondly Nor was the manner and form of granting these Laws by Charter or under Hand and Seal with the Confirmation of an Oath over and above the Coronation Oath any new Invention or Innovation at all for as William 1. began it so I am sure that H. 1. and K. Stephen and H. 2. did the same before And therefore if the obscure Birth of M. Charta was in K. Iohn's time it was then born with a grey Beard for it was in being in his Great Grandfather's Reign For thirdly That very Charter of his Great Grandfather H. 1. was the Ground and Reason of the Parliament's insisting upon having the like Confirmation of their Liberties by K. Iohn and was the Copy by which they went A. D. 1213. Reg. 15. For tho K. Iohn at his Absolution at Winchester from the Pope's Sentence and Excommunication had solemnly sworn to restore the good Laws of his Predecessors and particularly those of K. Edward and tho presently after at a Parliament at St. Albans the Laws of K. H. 1. were ordained to be observed throughout all England and all bad Laws to be abolished yet contrary to both these late Engagements he was marching an Army in all haste to fall upon several of his Barons who had lately failed in following him in an intended Expedition into France But the Archbishop stopt him in this Career by following him to Northampton and there telling him that it would be a breach of his Oath at his late Absolution to make war upon his Subjects without Judgment in Parliament The King huft him and told him That this was Lay business and that he would not delay the Business of the Kingdom for him and by break of day next morning marches hastily towards Nottingham The Archbishop still follows him assuring him that he would excommunicate all his followers if they proceeded any further in this hostile way and never left him till he had set a day for a Parliament that the Barons might there answer it This Parliament was held at London at St. Paul's Church where before it ended the Archbishop took some of the Lords apart and put them in mind how he made the King swear at
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
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
Writer's Pen So that it is not to be expected we shall hear any more of the Welsh And yet the same Summer when they baffled the King's Expedition against them he rejoices that their Martial Business prospered in their hands For he says that their Cause seemed to be a just Cause even to their Enemies And that which heartned them most was this that they were resolutely fighting for their antient Laws and Liberties like the Trojans from whom they were descended and with an original Constancy P. 952. Wo to the wretched English that are trampled upon by every Foreigner and suffer their antient Liberties of the Realm to be pufft out and extinguished and are not ashamed of this when they are taught better by the Example of the Welsh O England thou art justly reputed the Bondwoman of other Countries and beneath them all What thy Natives earn hardly Aliens snatch away and carry off It is impossible for an honest Man ever to hate his Country but if it will suffer it self to be oppressed it justly becomes at once both the pity and scorn of every understanding Man and of them chiefly that love it best But as we cannot hate our Country so for the same reason we cannot but hate such a Generation of Men as for their own little ends are willing to enslave it to all posterity wherein they are worse than Esau for he only sold his own Birthright for a mess of Pottage but not other Folk's too In the year 1258 a Parliament was called to London the day after Hoke Tuesday for great and weighty Affairs for the King had engaged and entangled himself in great and amazing Debts to the Pope about the Kingdom of Apulia and he was likewise sick of his Welsh War But when the King was very urgent for an Aid of Mony the Parliament resolutely and unanimously answered him That they neither would nor could bear such Extortions any longer Hereupon he betakes himself to his shifts to draw in the rich Abbys to be bound for him for Sums of Mony but though it was well managed he failed in it And that Parliament was prolonged and spent in Altercations between the King and the great Men till the week after Ascension day For the Complaints against the King were so multiplied daily and the Grievances were so many by the breach of M. Charta and the Insolence of the Foreigners P. 968. that M. Paris says it would require special Treatises to reckon up the King's Miscarriages And the King being reproved for them and being convinced of the justness of the Reproof bethought and humbled himself tho it were late first and said That he had been too often bewitcht by wicked Counsel but he promised which he likewise confirmed by an Oath taken upon the Altar and Shrine of St. Edward That he would plainly and punctually correct his former Errors and graciously comply with his natural born Subjects But his former frequent breach of Oath rendered him incredible and neither fit to be believed nor trusted And because the great Men knew not as yet how to hold fast their Proteus which was a hard and difficult business to do the Parliament was put off to Barnaby day to be held without fail at Oxford In the mean time the chief Men of England namely the Earls of Glocester Leicester and Hereford the Earl Marshal and other eminent Men out of a provident Precaution for themselves associated and because they were vehemently afraid of the Treachery of the Foreigners and much suspected the little Plots of the King they came armed and with a good Retinue to Oxford There the great Men in the very beginning of the Parliament confirmed their former Purpose and immutable Resolution to have the Charter of the Liberties of England faithfully kept and observed P 970. which the King had often granted and sworn and had caused all the Bishops of England to excommunicate in a horrible manner all the Breakers of it and he himself was one of the Excommunicators They demanded likewise to have a Justiciar that should do equal Justice and some other publick things which were for the common Profit of the King and Realm and tended to the Peace and Honour of them both And they frequently and urgently asked and advised the King to follow their Counsels and the necessary Provisions they had drawn up swearing with pledging their Faiths and giving one another their hands That they would not cease to pursue what they had propounded for the loss either of Mony or Lands or for the Life or Death of Themselves or Theirs Which when the King understood he solemnly swore That he would comply with their Counsels and agree to them And Prince Edward took the same Oath But Iohn Earl of Warren was refractory and refused it and the King 's half Brothers William of Valence and others Then the Sea-ports were order'd to be strictly guarded and the Gates of London to be close kept anights for fear the Foreigners should surprize it And when they had spent some days in deliberating what was to be done in so weighty an Affair as repairing the State of a broken shattered Kingdom was they confirmed their purpose with renewing their Covenants and Oaths That neither for Death nor Life nor Free-hold for Hatred or Affection or any other way they would be biass'd or slackned from purging the Realm of which they and their Progenitors before them were the native Offspring and clearing it of an Alien-born Brood nor from the procuring and obtaining good and commendable Laws And if any man whoever he be should be refractory and oppose this they would compel him to join with them whether he would or no. And tho the King and Prince Edward had both sworn before yet Prince Edward as he could refused this Oath and so did Iohn Earl of Warren But Henry Son to Richard King of the Romans was doubtful and unresolved saying That he could not take such an Oath unless it were with his Father's Leave and Advice To whom the Barons publickly made answer That if his Father himself would not agree to it he should not hold one Furrow of Land in England The Kings half Brothers were very positive and swore bloodily that they would never part with any of the Castles Revenues and Wards which their Brother had freely given them as long as they breathed But while they were asserting this and multiplying Oaths not fit to be rehearsed the Earl of Leicester made answer to William de Valence who was more swoln and haughty than the rest Know for certain that either you shall give up the Castles which you have from the King or you shall lose your Head And the other Earls and Barons firmly attested the same The Poitovins therefore were in a great Fright not knowing what to do For if they should retire to some Castle wanting Provisions they would soon be starved out Universitas enim Regni popularis etsi non
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
been drawn Swords to their known Den at London This scoffing Reason is all that M. Paris will give for their shameful Retreat and deserting their Companions but no doubt it was some panick Fright from the Reports of the Country concerning the Numbers and Conditions of the King's Army for he himself elsewhere tells us That they were such as struck a Terror into every body that beheld them This piece of Cowardice makes the King insult and push on the Siege with the greater fury which only lost him the more men for they defended themselves to a miracle and lost but one Knight during the whole Siege But at last their Provision failing them when they had not one Morsel left on St. Andrew's day they all went out and surrendred themselves to mercy The King immediately ordered them Barons and all to be hang'd up But in this Savaricus de Malloleone who was himself a Nobleman withstood him to the face and told him that as yet it was but a young War and no body knew what the Chances of it might be It might be his hap or any Noblemans else to fall into the hands of the Barons who would be taught by this example of his how to use them and that no body would serve him upon those Terms With much ado the King yielded to his Advice tho it was likewise the opinion of all the wisest about him and so he sent William Albinet and many others to be kept close Prisoners in Corf Castle others to Nottingham and other Prisons but gratify'd his Cruelty in hanging up their Servants One day during this Siege the King and Savaric were viewing the Castle to discover where it was weakest The best Marksman that William Albinet had knew him and said My Lord may it please you shall I now kill the King our bloody Enemy with this Dart which I have here ready No no says he you wicked Gluutton God forbid that we should procure the Death of the Lord 's Anointed Says the other If it were your case he would not spare you says William God's Will be done God shall dispose of that not he Herein says M. Paris he was like David sparing Saul when he could have killed him This Passage was not unknown to the King and yet for all that he would not spare him when he was his Captive but would have hang'd him if he had been suffer'd to do it After the Siege of Rochester Castle where the Flower of the Barons was lost King Iohn notwithstanding did not think fit to attempt London where tho the Barons did not judg themselves able to take the field yet were desperately resolved to live and die together but he march'd to St. Albans and the 20 th of December divided his Army into two one of which he himself led to lay waste with Fire and Sword Northwards the other he left to do as much for all the neighbouring Counties about London and to be sure to keep that place blockt up He with his Army lay the first night at Dunstaple but after a little rest he was so intent upon his business that before day he march'd towards Northampton and carried such a Christmas into those parts as they had never seen For besides his plundering and destroying all the Houses Parks and Possessions of the Barons his manner was still as he went along to order his Incendiaries to fire the Hedges and Villages which could not be turn'd into Plunder That he might refresh his sight with the Damages of his Enemies M. Paris recals that word if says he they are to be called his Enemies who were only willing to introduce him into the way of Iustice and Humanity They were indeed his best friends in it but they paid very dear for that good Office For before this the spiritual Sword likewise came brandishing out against them and they were run through and through with the Pope's Excommunications He first issued out a general Excommunication against them which they did not mind nor think themselves concerned as being not named in it nor indeed described For they were none of the disturbers of the Peace that were there mentioned who turned the Kingdom upside down and were worse than the Saracens for endeavouring to expel their Cross-bearing King from his Realm which they had never attempted nor intended who as he had engaged himself so it was to be hoped he would accordingly go and succour the Holy Land And therefore the Pope was forced to curse them over again by Name and reciting some of the principal of them he involved all their Partakers and Adherents in the same Condemnation and to make sure work he laid the City of London under an Interdict As for their poor Charter that was very short-liv'd for it bears date the 15 th of Iune and was made void and disannul'd by the Pope the Bartholomew-day following The Barons indeed despised all these swaggering Proceedings of the Pope against them as knowing that the causeless Curse will never come and alledging that it was all upon false suggestions and that he usurped an Authority in Matters which did not lye before him For who made him a Iudg or Divider of Inheritances A Power which St. Peter never had and which his humble Master declined when it was offered him But tho this Pontifical Ware was regarded at London as it deserved where the Prelates likewise did not think fit to publish it yet in that superstitious Age it could not fail to influence weak Minds when all the Subjects of England were enjoined to be aiding to K. Iohn against the Barons for the Remission of their Sins For who that had a Soul to save would not kill a Baron if he could It was K. Iohn's holy War And it must needs strangely heighten and animate his insolent Crew to see themselves thus backt with Divine Authority and would make them play the Devil a God's name Thus the Sword helpt the Sword and the spiritual one whetted and set an Edg upon the material It was the misery of the Barons to have their Country over-run in this manner and not be in a condition to help it As for their own losses they did not mind them When Messengers came thick with bad Tidings that their Castles and Possessions were gon and destroyed they only look'd upon one another and said The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away When they heard how their Wives and Daughters were abused they vented themselves by inveighing bitterly against the Pope and his most dearly beloved Son in Christ John But when they thought of England England then they lamented indeed and laid the ruin of it deeply to heart And resolving to have done with such a barbarous Tyrant and to choose a new King after some debate they unanimously agreed upon Lewis the Dauphin of France Their main Reason was because the most of K. Iohn's Army being Subjects of France upon the first appearance of Lewis they would be apt to join
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
prevention of Grievances is better than the cure of them there were 24 of the greatest Men in England ordained 12 by the King himself and 12 by the Parliament to be a standing Council without whose Advice nothing was to be done These were to have Parliaments three times a year where the Barons might come but the Commons were excused from coming to save Charges No wise Man will say that this was the English Constitution but these were necessary Alterations by way of Remedy till they should be able to bring the Government into the right Channel again For the Provisions of Oxford were only provisional like the Interim in Germany before the Reformation and to continue no longer than as so many Scaffolds till the Ruins of the Realm were repaired Accordingly the utmost Provision that I find was but for 12 years as we have it in the Oath of the Governours of the Kings Castles in these words Ceo est le serment ke les gardens des Chastels sirent Ann. Burton p. 413. Ke il les Chastels le Rei leaument e en bone fei garderunt al oes le Rei et ses heyrs E ke eus les rendrunt al Rei u a ses heyres et a nul autre et par sun cunseil et en nul autre manere Ceo est a saver par prodes homes de la terre esluz a sun Cunseil u par la greinure partie E ceste furme par escrit dure deske a duze ans E de ilokes en avant per cest establement et cest serment ne seint constreint ke franchement ne les pussent rendre al Rei u a ses heirs So that the Barons of England were certainly in the right when they said that the Provisions of Oxford were founded upon the Magna Charta which the French King and Parliament allowed for every greater contains in it the less and the Power of the 25 Conservators of M. Charta is visibly greater than that of the 24 Counsellors at Oxford as much as the Power of Coercion and punishing is above that of directing The French King and Parliament were so far Parties P. 991. that as we saw before they had promised the King a powerful Assistance which gave him encouragement so openly to break his Oath and undo what he had done Which certainly the Barons did not then know or else they would have bin very far from submitting to their determination especially when they could get nothing by it For if it had proceeded in favour of them they only had been where they were before a foreign Confirmation adding no Authority to English Laws and that Determination that was made only served to puzzle the Cause and to bring a War upon them which it must be intended this unwise Expedient was to prevent The first Aggressor in this War was Roger Mortimer who invaded and ravaged the Lands of Simon Monfort but he was soon even with him P. 992 The Prince likewise took several Castles and Robert Ferrars E. of Derby who was of neither side took that opportunity to seize and plunder the City of Worcester and do a deal of mischief for which he was afterwards sent Prisoner to the Tower The Barons Army easily retook what was taken and marched towards London where Iohn Mansell Lieutenant of the Tower fearing he should be severely handled by the Barons for he was the most special Counsellor the King and Queen had run away by stealth The King likewise fearing lest the Barons Army should besiege him in the Tower by the mediation of some that were afraid as well as he yielded to an Agreement with the Barons tho it afterwards prov'd to be but short-liv'd and promis'd to keep the Provisions of Oxford But the Queen instigated with a Feminine Malice oppos'd it all she could The Form of this Peace betwixt the King the Earl and Barons was upon these Conditions P. 993. 1. That Henry Son of the King of the Romans who was then the King's Prisoner should be releas'd 2. That all the King's Castles throughout England should be delivered up to the Custody of the Barons 3. That the Provisions of Oxford be inviolably kept 4. That all Foreigners by a set time should evacuate the Kingdom excepting those whose stay here should be allowed by common Consent as trusty to the Realm perhaps not a quarter of the number which we have in one Naturalization Act. That for the time to come the Natives of England who are faithful and profitable to the Realm may have the ordering of all Affairs under the King These things being thus covenanted in a little while after Pacts Promises Oaths notwithstanding several Knights on the King's part stored Windsor Castle with a great quantity of Provisions and Arms and they and the Prince begun a new War This War lasted with great variety of strange Successes on both sides for several years till the Earl of Leicester was overthrown and slain in the Battle of Evesham Upon which the Historian says And thus ended his Labours that great Man Earl Simon who spent not only his but himself in behalf of the oppressed in asserting a just Cause and maintaining the Rights of the Realm He undertook this Cause P. 998. in which he fought to the death by the advice and at the instance of the Blessed Robert Grosthead Bishop of Lincoln who constantly affirmed that all that died for it were crowned with Martyrdom After this deciding Battle the Prince follow'd his Blow by advising his Father to call a Parliament forthwith before his Victory cool'd which accordingly met at Winchester 8. Sept. whereas the Fight was 5. Aug. before In this Parliament they did what they would with the Earl's broken and dispers'd Party P. 999. The chief of them were imprisoned to be punished at the King's will the City of London disfranchised for their Rebellion all that took part with E. Simon disinherited whose Lands the King presently bestowed upon those that had stuck faithfully to him as a reward of their Merit Ottobon the Legat also call'd a Council at Northampton and there excommunicated all the Bishops and Clergy that had aided and favoured E. Simon against the King namely the Bishops of Winchester London Worcester and Chichester Of whom the Bishop of Worcester poorly died viliter in few days after this Sentence P. 1001. but the other three went to Rome to make their Peace with the Pope In short he excommunicated all others whatsoever that had been against the King The disinherited Barons thought never the worse of their Cause for this Overthrow but still continued in Arms for three years after And tho they were forc'd to fly from place to place and live as they could yet they seem to be the Conquerors For their Answer to the Legates Message to them in the Isle of Ely shews them to be Men of great Wisdom P. 1004. Integrity and Constancy and their Demands likewise are
like themselves For they require the Legat to restore the Council of the whole Realm which he had irreverently ejected out of the Realm the Bishops of Winchester London and Chichester Men of great Counsel and Prudence for want of whom the Nation sunk They require him to admonish the King to remove Aliens from his Council by whom the Land is held in Captivity That their Lands may be restored them without Redemption at 7 years purchase which was lately allowed them at Coventry That the Provisions of Oxford be kept That Hostages be delivered them into the Isle of Ely and they to hold that place peaceably for five years while they shall see how the King performs his Promises And after this they reckon up several Grievances as the Collation of Benefices upon Strangers which are for the Livelihood and Maintenance of Natives only c. All which they admonish the Legat to see amended Dan. p. 183. Thus they treat says Daniel not like Men whom their Fortunes had laid upon the Ground but as if they had been still standing so much wrought either the opinion of their Cause or the hope of their Party But this Stubbornness so exasperates the King as the next year following he prepares a mighty Army besets the Isle so that he shuts them up and Prince Edward with Bridges made on Boats enters the same to whom some of them yielded themselves and the rest were dispersed by Flight He needed not to have been at such a loss for a Reason of these mens resolute Behaviour much less to have miscall'd it if he had heeded the 4 th Article of their Answer to the Legat which he has translated to loss To the fourth they say P. 1003. That their first Oath was for the profit of the Realm and the whole Church and all the Prelats of the Kingdom have past the Sentence of Excommunication against all that contravene it and being still of the same mind they are ready prepared to die for the said Oath Wherefore they require the Legat to recal his Sentence of Excommunication otherwise they appeal to the Apostolick See and even to a General Council or if need were to the Soveraign Iudg of all Now they that had this sense of their Duty and of the publick Good tho they were lost Men in the eye of the World could not chuse but stand upon their Terms neither could they abate one jot of a righteous Cause which was all they had left to support them And that was enough for he that is in the right is always Superiour to him that is in the wrong The Parliament at Winchester seems to have sat in hot Blood but that King 's succeeding Parliaments were far from suffering him to be absolute and arbitrary tho there was never a Rebel amongst them For the Parliament at Bury gave nothing but very smart Denials to his and the Legat's scurvy Petitions P. 1002. Petitiones pessimas as they call'd them which were contained in eight Articles The first was That the Prelates and Rectors of Churches should grant him the Tenths for three years to come and for the year last past so much as they gave the Barons for guarding the Sea against Strangers Answ. To this they gave answer That the War began by unjust Covetise and is not yet over the Isle of Ely being not then reduced and it were necessary to let alone such very bad Petitions as these and to treat of the Peace of the Realm and to convert his Parliament to the profit of Church and Kingdom not to the Extortion of Pence especially when the Land is so far destroyed by the War that it will be a long time if ever before it recover The seventh is in the Pope's behalf for the speedy preaching up of a Crusado throughout all England Answ. To this they made answer That the People of the Land is in a great part destroyed by the War and if they should now engage in a Crusado few or none would be left for the Defence of their Country whereby it is manifest that the Legate would have the natural Progeny of the Land into Banishment that Strangers might the more easily conquer the Land Art 8. Also it was said That the Prelates were bound to agree to all these Petitions nolens volens because of their late Oath at Coventry where they swore they would aid our Lord the King all manner of ways they could possibly Answ. To this they made Answer That when they took that Oath they did not understand by it any other Aid but Ghostly and wholsom Advice A very trim Answer And all the rest are much after the same fashion And to conclude this whole Reign at his last Parliament at Marleburgh M. Charta was confirmed in all its Points Thus have I brought down the History of M. Charta to he end of Henry the 3 d wherein you have a short but punctual Account of that Affair and the true face of things For I have told the Story with the same Air the Writer himself does and have been so faithful in the Relation as to keep close to his very Phrase whereby in several places it is the worse English tho the better History As for the Writer himself he was the most able and sufficient and the most competent that could be writing upon the Spot and having all the Advantages which added to his own Diligence could give him true Information For he was Historiographer Royal to King Henry III. and invited by him to the Familiarity of dining and being in frequent conference with him and was directed by him to record several Matters and to set them down in indelible Characters which I believe his will prove And as to his Integrity no Man can suspect him unless it be for being partial on the Court side as being in their pay But his Writings shew that he was above that mean Consideration and though he gives the King a Cast of his Office where he can and relates things to his advantage yet he has likewise done right to the Barons and was a faster Friend to Truth than to either of them And accordingly in King Edward I's claim to a Superiority over the Kingdom of Scotland this very Writing is brought as authentick History concerning what passed at York 35 H. 3. and is cited by the name of the Chronicle of St. Albans In one thing he excels which is owing to the Largeness and Freedom of his converse with Persons of the first Quality that he not only records barely what was done but what every body said upon all occasions which as Baronius says it is makes it a golden Book For Mens Speeches give us great light into the meaning of their Actions which is the very inside of History In this History of Magna Charta the History of the Barons Wars was necessarily involved so that in writing one I must write both for as you see they were wholly undertaken for recovering
E. Iohn should restore all men their Rights upon this they were sworn But E. Iohn did not nor would not restore all men their Rights and therefore it was E. Iohn himself that released them from their Oath and gave it them again For I never heard of a Covenant on one side The morrow after his Coronation he received their Homages and Fealties over again but that was the Counterpart of his Coronation Oath And that again he bitterly broke though when he was adjured not to presume to receive the Crown unless he meant to fulfil his Oath he then promised that by the help of God he would keep all that he had sworn bona fide How he kept that part which concerned the Church no way concerns this Discourse because he was at this time the Popes white Boy having before given him his Kingdoms of England and Ireland and had then sent him Mony to confound the Barons and Charter But the other two thirds of that Oath which concern'd the People I will here set down that every body who has read his Reign may see how truly and faithfully he kept it Et quod perversis Legibus destructis bonas substitueret rectam Iustitiam in Regno Angliae exerceret That he would destroy the bad Laws and establish Good ones in their room and administer right Iustice in the Realm of England His not keeping the Oath to destroy perverse Laws and substitute Good was the present Controversy and Quarrel which his Barons had with him For the whole meaning of the Charter was to abolish all the ill depraved Laws and Customs that had been introduced and to restore the good Antient and approved Laws of the Kingdom instead of them But the Pope amongst other Proposals he made would fain have prevented and baffled the Charter by this Expedient That King John should be bound to revoke all Abuses introduced in his time This was a lame business indeed when the oppressed Barons wanted to be relieved from the Tyrannous Usages introduced in former Reigns and from a Succession of Evils King Iohn by his Coronation Oath was bound to destroy and abolish all the bad Laws that were before him and so are our Kings to this day and not to make a former Tyrannous Reign a Pattern The Barons might indeed have had all K. Iohn's later Grievances redressed and yet have perished under the weight of such as were in his Brother Richard's Reign After Daniel has reckoned up several intolerable Exactions and Grievances in that Reign he has these words And with these Vexations saith Hoveden all England from Sea to Sea was reduced to extream Poverty and yet it ended not here Another Torment is added to the Confusion of the Subjects by the Justices of the Forests Dan. p. 125. who not only execute those hideous Laws introduced by the Norman but impose others of more tyrannical severity as the memory thereof being odious deserve to be utterly forgotten having afterwards by the hard Labour of our Noble Ancestors and the goodness of more Regular Princes been asswaged and now out of Use. This deceitful Remedy of the Pope's therefore would have undone the Barons for such a partial Reformation of Abuses would have established all the rest according to that known Maxim Exceptio firmat regulam in casibus non exceptis To return to K. Iohn's Oath neither did he keep that Branch of it which relates to the Administration of true upright Iustice unless you will allow the destroying of a brave Baron William Brause and the famishing his Wife and two Sons in Windsor Castle for a rash Word of hers and the putting the Arch-Deacon of Norwich into a sheet of Lead and several such Barbarities to be choice and eminent Instances of it So that when the Pope charges the Barons with the breach of their Oath of Fidelity to King Iohn it is unknown to me that they owed him any which K. Iohn himself seemed to mistrust when after the Barons Demand of their Liberties he used that fruitless precaution of causing his whole Kingdom to swear Fidelity to him and renew their Homages For what signified this swearing to him never so often while he himself was breaking the Original Contract and rendring all their Fidelities meer Nullities by destroying the Foundation of them and the only Consideration upon which they were made It is as Laud says A Covenant is a Knot and to untie a Knot you need not loose both Ends of it but in untying one End you untie both And such is the mutual Bond of Ligeance betwixt King and People it is conditional and reciprocal And therefore it was impossible for K. Iohn's Subjects to be bound while he was loose That the Fidelity of Kings and Subjects to each other is mutual conditional reciprocal and dependent I shall prove by the Authority of two Kings who very well knew how that matter stood It is in a solemn Covenant of theirs which because it is short I will here transcribe Ego Lodowicus Rex Francorum ego Rex Anglorum volumus ad omnium notitiam pervenire nos Deo inspirante promisisse A.D. 1177. M.P. p. 133 Forma pactiâ—inter Anglorum Callorum regeâ—initi juramento confirmasse quod simul ibimus in servitium Crucifixi ituri Hierosolymam suscipiemus signaculum sanctae crucis amodò volumus esse amici ad invicem ita quod uterque nostrûm alteri conservabit vitam membra honorem terrenum contra omnes homines Et si quaecunque persona alteri nostrûm malum facere praesumpserit Ego Henricus juvabo Lodowicum Regem Francorum dominum meum contra omnes homines ego Lodowicus juvabo Regem Anglorum Henricum contra omnes homines sicut fidelem meum salva fide quam debemus hominibus nostris quamdiu nobis fidelitatem servabunt Acta autem sunt haec apud Minantcourt septimo Kalendas Octobris They both of them enter a saving for the Fidelity they owe to their Subjects so long as their Subjects shall keep their Fidelity to them Here we have that express'd which was ever implied for whether the Quamdiu eousque quousque usquequó be in or out it matters not At K. Stephen's first Parliament at Oxford he made them a Charter which he promised before his Coronation whereby he freed both Clergy and Laiety from all their Grievances wherewith they had been oppressed and confirmed it by his Oath in full Parliament where likewise says Daniel Dan. p. 69. the Bishops swore Fealty unto him but with this Condition so long as he observed the Tenour of this Charter Now it seems this Clause of abundant cautelousness was not in the Oath of the Earls and Barons neither needed it for if K. Stephen broke with his People of course their Fealty ceas'd This we have again express'd in words at length in the solemn Charter of the same King wherein by Consent of Parliament he adopted and made Hen. II.