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
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
he was more than half a Norman Now these things being the undoubted Rights of the Kingdom their antient Laws and Liberties and Birthright we have the less reason to be sollicitous in what manner they shall at any time recover them let them look to that who violently or fraudulently keep them from them For it would be a ridiculous thing in our Law for a man to have an Estate in Land and he could not come at it The Law will give him a Way If the Law gives the King Royal Mines it gives him a Power to dig in any man's Land where they are that he may come at his own And so if a Nation have Right all that is necessary for the keeping and enjoying them is by Law included in those Rights themselves as pursuant to them But because this is a great Point and I would willingly leave it a clear one I shall shew that the Barons proceeded legally in their whole Affair and according to the known Principles of the English Government and that all the Pope's infallible Bribe-Arguments against them which have been since plentifully transcrib'd are nothing worth I might indeed content my self with the short blunt Arguments of Mr. Selden who was known to have the Learning of twenty men and Honesty in proportion 1. That the Custom and Usage of England is the Law of England as the Usage of Parliament is the Law of Parliament Now the Ancestors of K. Iohn's Barons recovered their Rights in the same way This was done in William the First 's time in the 4 th year of his Reign when * M. Paris in vit Frederici Abb. p. 48. Videntes igitur Angli rem agi pro capitibus plures convocando exercitum numerosum ac fortissimum conflaverunt they raised a great Army and it was time seeing that all they had lay at stake under a cruel and insolent Prince Whereupon †Coepit igitur Rex vehementèr sibi timere ne totum Regnum quod tanti sanguinis effusione adquisierat turpiter amitteret etiam trucidatus K. William being in a bodily fear of basely losing the whole Kingdom which he had gained with the effusion of so much Blood and of being cut off himself called a Parliament to Barkhamsted where he swore over again to observe inviolably the good antient approved Laws of the Realm and especially the Laws of K. Edward How inviolably he afterwards kept that Oath and how he ‖ Leges violans memoratas Fuos Normannos in suorum hominum Anglorum naturalium qui ipsum sponte sublimaverunt provocationem locupletavit enriched his Normans with the Spoils of his own natural men the English who of their own accord preferr'd him to the Crown I had rather the Reader himself should find out by his own perusal of that instructive piece of History 2. The English Government is upon Covenant and Contract Now it is needless in Leagues and Covenants to say what shall be done in case the Articles are broken If Satisfaction be denied the injured Party must get it as he can Taking of Castles Ships and Towns are not provided for and made lawful by any special Article but those things are always implied and always done Yet seeing Pope Innocent III. in his Bull for disannulling M. Charta for ever and in his Excommunication of the Barons has afforded us his Reasons for so doing we can do no less than consider them The weight of his Charge against them is this That instead of endeavouring to gain what they wanted by fair means they broke their Oath of Fidelity That they who were Vassals presumed to raise Arms against their Lord M. Paris p. 266. and Knights against their King which they ought not to have done put case he had unjustly oppressed them and that they made themselves both Iudges and Executors in their own Cause That they reduced him to those streights that whatsoever they durst ask he durst not deny whereby he was compelled by Force and that Fear which is incident to the stoutest Man to make a dishonourable and dirty Agreement with them which was likewise unlawful and unjust to the great derogation and diminution of his own Right and Honour Now because says the Pope it is spoken to me by the Lord in the Prophet I have set thee up over Nations and Kingdoms to pluck up and destroy to build and to plant he proceeds to damn as well the Charter as the Obligations and Cautions in behalf of it forbidding the King under the penalty of an Anathema to keep it or the Barons to require it to be kept The Barons might well say that the Pope went upon false Suggestions for he is out in every thing For 1 st There was no winning of K. Iohn by seeking to him He would not have granted them their Liberties if they had kissed his Toe The Barons had really born with him longer than they ought for having stipulated to have their Rights restored to them before they admitted him to the Crown it was too long to stay above 15 years for them and to suffer so much mischief to be done in the mean time through their Neglect In the 3 d year of his Reign they met indeed at Leicester and used a sort of Negative means to come at their Rights for they sent him word That unless he would restore them their Rights they would not attend him into France But upon this as Hoveden says the King using ill Counsel required their Castles and beginning with William Albinet demands his Castle of Beavoir William delivers his Son in pledg but kept his Castle And so upon several occasions they were forced to deliver up for Hostages their Sons Nephews and nearest of kin And thus he tyrannized over them till the Archbishop put them into a right Method And when at last they had agreed to demand their Rights and had demanded them they staid for an Answer from Christmass to Easter for so long he demurred upon what he was bound to have done above 15 years before and then gave them a flat Denial So that all the world saving his Holiness must say that the Barons were not Rash upon him Nor 2 dly That the Barons had no regard to their Oath of Fidelity Juramento fidelitatis omnino contempto For their Oath of Fidelity was upon this Condition that E. John should restore all men their Rights and upon the Faith which his Commissioners solemnly made to them that thus it should be they swore Fidelity to him at Northampton So that K. Iohn had no right at all to this early Oath of Fidelity because he himself would not keep Covenant P. 196. nor fulfil the Terms and Conditions upon which it was made The * Et fecerunt illis fidem quod Comes Johannes Jura sua redderet universis sub tali igitur Conventione Comites Barones Comiti memorato fidelitatem contra omnes homines juraverunt Bargain was