Winchester to restore the good Laws of K. Edward and cause them to be observed by all the Realm And now says he there is likewise found a certain Charter of H. 1 King of England by which if you please you may be able to restore your long lost Liberties to their former state and condition and producing the Charter he caused it to be read all over in their hearing Which the Lords having heard and understood were overjoy'd and swore in the presence of the Archbishop That when they saw it convenient for these Liberties if need were they would spend their Lives The Archbishop for his part promised them his most faithful aid and assistance to the utmost of his power and after this Association was thus entred into the Parliament broke up There had past but 113 years since the Grant of H. 1. Charter and though there were then made as many Charters as there were Shires directed to the Sheriff of every County to proclaim them for this is directed to Hugh de Bocland Sheriff of Herefordshire and by the King 's express Order were to be laid up in the Abbys of the several Counties for a Monument yet because the thing was beyond the memory of Man and that Age not very conversant with Book-learning or Records it seems not to be known to them and the Archbishop says Inventa est quoque nunc Charta quaedam H. 1. But when the Lords had once seen it they were so fond of it that they got it away from the Archbishop and the next year about Michaelmas when the King was returning out of France the Earls and Barons met at St. Edmondsbury it might be thought for Devotion but it was to consult about their Liberties and there the Charter of H. 1. which contained their Laws and Liberties was again produced and treated of amongst them After which they all went to the High Altar and there swore in order beginning at the Greatest That if the King should refuse to confirm by his Charter the said Laws and Liberties being the Rights of the Kingdom they would make War upon him till he did And likewise at last by common consent they came to this Resolution That they would all go together to the King after Christmas and desire him to confirm the said Liberties And in the mean time that they would make such provision of Horses and Arms that in case the King should start from his late Oath wherein he promised it which they had too much reason to believe because of his doubleness they might then compel him to performance by seizing his Castles Accordingly after Christmas they came to the King in a gay military Habit and desired the Confirmation of their antient Liberties as they were contained in writing in the Charter H. 1. and the Laws of K. Edward They affirmed likewise that by his Oath at Winchester he had promised those Laws and Liberties and that he was already bound to keep them by his own Oath The King seeing the Constancy and Resolution of the Barons in their Demand did not think fit to deny them but desired respite and time to consider of it being a weighty business till after Easter and after several Proposals on both sides the King very unwillingly set a day and the Archbishop Bishop of Ely and Lord Marshal were his Sureties that then they should all of them have satisfaction given them in reason Upon this the Lords went home But the King in the mean time by way of precaution caused all the whole Realm to swear fealty to him alone against all Men and to renew their Homages And as a farther Security and Protection more than out of Devotion at Candlemas following he took upon him the Cross. In Easter-week the forementioned Lords met at Stanford who now had drawn together in favour of them almost all the Nobility and principal Gentry of England So that they amounted to a numerous Army and the sooner because K. Iohn had rendered himself universally hated In this Retinue were 2000 Knights besides all others of lower rank Horse and Foot diversly armed The King was then at Oxford expecting the coming of the Parliament On the Monday following these associated Barons came to Brackley which when the King understood he sent to them the Arch-Bishop the Lord Marshal E. of Pembroke and several other sage Persons to know what were the Laws and Liberties they required which they presently delivered in a Schedule to those that came from the King affirming that if he would not forthwith confirm them under his Seal they would compel him by seizing his Castles Lands and Possessions till he gave them competent satisfaction in the Premises Then the Arch-Bishop with the rest of his Company carrying this Schedule to the King rehearsed all the Chapters or Heads of it before him memoritè But when the King understood the Purport of it he laugh'd and said with the utmost Indignation and Scorn And why do not the Barons together with these unjust Demands demand my Kingdom The things they ask said he are idle and superstitious and not supported by any tittle or pretence of Reason And at length in a great rage he affirm'd with an Oath That he would never grant them such Liberties whereby he himself should be made a Servant When therefore the Arch-Bishop and Earl of Pembroke could in no wise gain the King's Consent to these Liberties by his command they returned to the Barons and there reported just what the King had said in order Whereupon the Barons presently chose them a General and flew to their Arms and marcht directly to Northampton to seize that Castle But having spent 15 days in that fruitless Attempt having no Petards nor other warlike Instruments to carry on a Siege somewhat abashed with this Disappointment they marcht to Bedford where they were kindly received and by Messengers sent to them from the principal Citizens were invited to London When they were come thither they sent Letters to all the Earls Barons and Knights that as yet seemed to adhere to the King tho it were but feignedly That as they tender'd their Estates they should leave a perjur'd King and come and join them and effectually engage with them for the Liberties and Peace of the Realm otherwise they threatned to treat them as publick Enemies Upon which most of the Lords who had not as yet sworn to the said Liberties wholly leaving the King came to London and there associated with the Barons King Iohn seeing himself thus generally forsaken so that he had hardly seven Knights remaining with him and fearing lest the Barons should insult his Camp which they might easily have done without opposition he betook himself to fraud and dissembling pretending Peace when he had immortal War in his Heart resolving hereafter to oppress the Barons singly whom he could not all at once He therefore sends to them the E. of Pembroke and other Persons of Credit with this Message That for the Benefit
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
him and leave K. Iohn whereby of necessity he would be soon brought to reason and in all probability it would be a very short War Lewis readily accepted their Offer and came over upon the security of 24 of the principal Barons Sons for Hostages and being joyfully received at London by the Barons had Homage and Fealty sworn to him and he himself swore to restore them their good Laws and their lost Inheritances After which he writ to the King of Scotland to come and do him homage and to all the great Men of England to come and do the like or else immediately depart the Kingdom Upon which the Earls of Warren Arundel Salisbury King Iohn's Brother and the Earl Marshal's Son with mnay others readily obeyed this Summons and left King Iohn as did his Foreigners all but the Poitovins some of them returning home with their Spoils and the rest coming over to the Dauphin From the first arrival of Lewis K. Iohn never stood his ground and though he came with his great Army to Dover to hinder his landing yet he durst not trust that Army to engage but leaving a strong Garison in Dover Castle he took a run to Guilford and from thence to Winchester without stopping whereby he both gave Lewis a free Passage to London to join the Barons and also lost most of his new Conquests in less time than he gained them But the King of France undervalued all his Son's Successes swearing that he had not gotten one foot of ground in England till he was possessed of Dover Castle which made him undertake a vigorous tho fruitless Siege of that place where in a short time the King of Scotland came and did him Homage But while the Dauphin was engaged in that Siege there happened an Accident which altered the whole Scene of Affairs The Viscount of Melun a Nobleman of France who came over with Lewis fell very sick at London And finding himself at the point of death he sent for some of the Barons of England who were left to take care of the City to come to speak with him to whom he said I am grieved for you at the thoughts of your desolation and destruction because you are wholly ignorant of the Perils that hang over your heads for Lewis has taken an Oath and sixteen Earls and Barons of France with him That if ever he get England and be crowned King he will condemn all the Barons that are now in Arms with him against K. Iohn to perpetual Banishment as Traytors against their Soveraign Lord and will extirpate the whole Race of them out of the Land And lest you should doubt of the Truth of this I that lie here ready to die do affirm to you upon the peril of my Soul that I my self was one of those that were engaged with Lewis in this Oath Wherefore I now counsel you by all means to look carefully to your selves hereafter and to make the best use of what I have told you and to keep it under the Seal of Secrecy When this Nobleman had thus said forthwith he expired When this dying Secret came to be spread amongst the rest of the Barons they were sadly cast down finding themselves surrounded with Difficulties and perplexed on every side For as a concurrent proof of what Viscount Melun had said Lewis instead of restoring them to their Rights according to his Oath had given all the Lands and Castles of the Barons as fast as he won them to his own Frenchmen and though the Barons grumbl'd at this yet they could not prevent it But what they laid most to heart was that he had branded them as Traytors They were excommunicated every day and despoiled of all terrene Honour and driven to all extremities of Body and Soul In this miserable perplexity many of them thought of returning and reconciling themselves to K. Iohn but that the Breach was too wide They were plainly at their wits end and were willing to do any thing to be rid of this perjur'd and perfidious Foreigner who had thus ungratefully entered into a desperate Conspiracy against them During this tedious Siege of Dover Castle where Lewis and many of his Barons were sure to be detain'd K. Iohn who had been dodging up and down took this opportunity of making a terrible Inroad into the Counties of Norfolk and Suffolk where he made his usual Progress Northward as if he had taken up a Resolution to live and die in his Calling For one of the last things he did before he sickned was burning to ashes all the stacks of Corn as he went along in all the Mannors of the Abbot of Croyland which were but just inned that Harvest He was first indisposed at Swinshed Abbey but his illness encreasing he could hardly reach Newark Castle and there by the advice of the Abbot Croestoun he confessed and received the Sacrament After which he appointed his eldest Son Henry his Heir and ordered the Realm to swear to him and sent his Letters under his Seal to all the Sheriffs and Castellans of the Kingdom to be attendant on him Just when he was dying there arrived Messengers from some of the Barons about forty of them with Letters to be reconciled to him but he was not in a condition to mind such Affairs In ten days time after K. Iohn's death that Party which had adhered to him with Guallo the Pope's Legate made haste to crown his Son at Glocester And because he was not yet ten years old and so noways concerned in the hated Cruelties of his Father and might be used as an expedient to drive out an already hated and insolent Foreigner he was presently accepted by the Kingdom while on the other hand upon the first knowledg of K. Iohn's death Lewis had in his own Conceit wholly subdued and swallowed up the Kingdom but he found the contrary in summoning Dover Castle upon this occasion thinking to have had the Castle for his News for he met with such a resolute Denial as he took for an Answer and broke up the Siege Afterwards he took some few places but the young King's Party still encreasing and many of the Barons by degrees falling from him and the Forces he had sent for out of France being utterly defeated at Sea and all sunk or taken and he and the Barons that were with him being closely besieged in the City of London he was forced to come to this Composition That Lewis and all his Foreigners should depart the Kingdom and that he should never lay claim to it hereafter but restore what belonged to the King in France and to have fifteen thousand Marks for his Voyage And on the other hand the King the Legate and the Great Marshal being Protector swore That they would restore to the Barons and all others of the Realm all their Rights and Inheritances with all those Liberties which they had before demanded for which the War had begun betwixt K. Iohn and the Barons This
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
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
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
his Heir and gave him and his Heirs the Realm of England Bromton Col. 1â—38 Comites etiam Barones mei Ligium Homagium Duci fecerunt salva mea fidelitate quamdiu vixero regnum tenuero simili lege quod si ego a praedictis recederem omnino a servitio meo cessarent quousque errata corrigerem Their Duty to him ceas'd 'till he mended his Fault and returned again to keep his Covenant Quousque Errata corrigat ad praedictam pactionem observandam redeat Col. 1â—39 Paulo infra There is no need of these words at length at the end of every Charter or Petition of Right in case it be broken which we find in the close of Hen. III's Charter In Archiv London Anno Regni 42. Liceat omnibus de Regno nostro contra nos insurgere ad gravamen nostrum opem operam dare ac si nobis in nullo tenerentur All the men in our Realm may lawfully rise up against us and annoy us with might and main as if they were under no Obligation to us Because in the Polish Coronation Oath which likewise is in words at length we have a plain Hint why they had better be omitted an supprest Quod si sacramentum meum violavero quod absit Incolae hujus Regni nullam nobis obedientiam praestare tenebuntur And in case I break my Oath which God forbid the Inhabitants of this Realm shall not be bound to yield me any Obedience Now this God forbid and the harsh Supposition of breaking an Oath at the very making of it is better omitted when it is for every bodies ease rather to suppose that it will be faithfully kept especially seeing that in case it be unhappily broken the very natural Force and Virtue of a Contract does of it self supply that Omission Neither is it practised in Articles of Agreement and Covenants under Hand and Seal betwixt Man and Man to make a special provision that upon breach of Covenants they shall sue one another either at Common Law or in Chancery because this implies that one of them shall prove a Knave and dishonest but when that comes to pass I am sure Westminster Hall cannot hold them In like manner the Barons after they had born with K. Iohn's Breach of Covenant very much too long swore at last at the High Altar at St. Edmondsbury M. Paris p. 253. That if he refused them their Liberties they would make War upon him so long as to withdraw themselves from their Fidelity to him till such time as he confirm'd their Laws and Liberties by his Charter And afterwards at the Demand of them they say that which is a very good Reason for their Resolve That he had promised them those Antient Laws and Liberties and was already bound to the observation of them by his own proper Oath So that the Pope was quite out when he says the Barons set at nought and broke their Oath of Fidelity to K. Iohn for they only helped him to keep his The next thing objected against the Barons is this That they who were Vassals presumed to raise Arms against their Lord and Knights against their King which they ought not to have done altho he had unjustly oppressed them And that they made themselves both Iudges and Executors in their own Cause All which is very easily answered For 1. It was always lawful for Vassals to make War upon their Lords if they had just Cause So our Kings did perpetually upon the Kings of France to whom they were Vassals all the while they held their Territories in that Kingdom And by the Law of England an inferiour Vassal might fight his Lord in a weighty Cause even in Duell The Pope seems here willing to depress the Barons with low Titles that he may the better set off the Presumption of their Proceedings but before I have ended I shall shew what Vassals the Barons were I should be loath to say that the Kings of England were not all along as good Men as their Lords of France or that the Barons of England were not good enough to assert their Rights against any body but this I do say that it was always lawful for Vassals to right themselves even while they were Vassals and without throwing up their Homage and Fealty For that was never done till they declared themselves irreconcileable Enemies and were upon terms of Defiance Thus the Kings of England always made War in defence of their Rights without throwing up their Homage and Fealty till that last bitter enraged War of Hen. 2. wherein he had that ill success as broke his Heart and forced him to a dishonourable Peace the Conclusion of which he outliv'd but three days Amongst other things he did homage to the King of France because in the beginning of this War he had rendred up his Homage to him M. Paris takes notice of it as an extraordinary thing and I do not remember it done before Quia in principio hujus guerrae homagium reddiderat Regi Franciae p. 151. The same was practised by H. 3. toward that Great Man Richard the Marshal he sent him a Defiance by the Bishop of St. David's into Wales Upon which the Marshal tells Friar Agnellus the King's Counsellor in that long Conference before mentioned Vnde homo suus non fui sed ab ipsius Homagio per ipsum absolutus This was reciprocal from the Lord to the Vassal or from the Vassal to the Lord as he found cause And therefore King Iohn's Vassals who are here represented as if they were food for Tyranny and bound by their places to be unjustly oppressed for so the Pope allows the case I say these Vassals if they had been so minded instead of being contented with a Charter at Running-Mead might soon have been quite off of K. Iohn by resigning their Homage to him This K. Edw. the Second's Vassals did in manner and form by the Mouth of William Trussel a Judg in these words Knyghton col 2549. Ego Willielmus Trussel vice omnium de terrâ Angliae totius Parliamenti procurator tibi Edwarde reddo Homagium prius tibi factum extunc diffido te privo omni potestate regiâ dignitate nequaquam tibi de caetero tanquam Regi pariturus I William Trussel in the name of all men of the Land of England and of the whole Parliament Procurator resign to thee Edward the Homage formerly made to thee and henceforward I defy thee and prive thee of all Royal Power and Dignity and shall never hereafter be tendant on thee as King This was the standing Law long before the time of K. Iohn's Barons for the Parliament in the 10 th of Rich. 2. send the King a solemn Message that * Knyghton col 2683. Habent enim ex Antiquo statuto de facto non longe retroactis temporibus experienter quod dolendum est habito si Rex ex maligno consilio quocunque
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
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
have it restored to him again the Marshal sent to the King to desire him to deliver him back his Castle according to the Covenant of which he had made the Bishop of Winchester and Stephen Segrave the Justiciar his Sureties which likewise they had confirmed by taking an Oath But the King answered with Indignation That he was so far from restoring him that Castle that he would sooner subdue all the rest he had When therefore the Marshal saw that there was no Faith nor Oath nor Peace kept by the Counsellors of the King he gathered an Army and besieged his own Castle and with a little ado won it The King was at this time holding his Parliament as he had promised his great Men that by their advice he might redress those things which were amiss but the evil Counsel he then followed did not suffer it to be done Though many that were there present humbly besought him for God's sake that he would make peace with his Barons and Nobles And other Persons in favour with the King namely the Friars Predicants and Minorites whom he used to reverence and hearken to these earnestly exhorted him that he would study to carry himself lovingly as he ought to do towards his natural Subjects whom without judgment of their Peers he had driven into banishment burnt their Mannor-Houses cut down their Woods destroyed their Ponds and being led and misled by the bad Counsel of bad Men sets aside his Leiges whose native blood would never suffer them to warp and prefers other whiffling People before them and which is worse calls those Traitors by whom he ought to order the Peace and Counsels of the Realm and settle all Affairs To this the Bishop of Winchester made answer That the Peers of England are not as they are in France and therefore the King may judg and condemn and banish any of them by his own Justices of his own appointing The Bishops hearing this as it were with one voice fell a threatning that they would excommunicate the principal of the King 's evil Counsellors by name and they named the Bishop himself as the Ring-leader of them and his Kinsman Rivallis the Justiciar and the Treasurer To whom the Bishop answering alledged That he was consecrated Bishop at Rome by the Pope and so was exempted from their Power and appealed to the Apostolick See And so the Bishops only excommunicate in general all those that had or should alienate the King's heart from his natural Subjects of the Realm and all that should disturb the Peace of the Realm In this Parliament the King had Tidings that the Earl Marshal had taken his Castle in Wales and killed several of his Knights and Servants At which the King was much incensed and commanded the Bishops to excommunicate him but it was the answer of them all that it would be an unworthy thing to excommunicate a Man for seizing a Castle that was all his own and for taking possession of his own Right But the King still enraged summoned again all his Knights with Horses and Arms to Glocester the morrow after All Saints and there he gathered a numerous Army and entred Wales breathing and panting after the destruction of the Marshal But he like a provident Warriour had beforehand driven away all the Cattle and withdrawn all Provisions so that the King had no subsistence for his Army in those parts but was forced to march another way and came to the Castle of Grosmund Where while he spent some days the Marshal and his Associates sent Scouts to discover the Posture of his Army and on Martinmas night all of them but the Marshal who would not invade the King with a good Army surprized the King's Camp where they fled away almost naked and the Conquerors on the other side would not hurt any of them nor take one Prisoner Indiscretè rebellantes excepting two Knights who indiscreetly making Resistance were killed rather by themselves than by the others But they took away all their Carriages and Provisions Mony and Arms and so retired again into their strong holds I believe such a modest Victory was never read of and Mat. Paris presently calls them for Witnesses of the Truth of this Rout who run away and lost all they had in it The Bishops of Winchester and Chichester Segrave the Justiciar Rivallis the Treasurer the Earls of Norfolk and Salisbury and many more The King who had been left even as good as alone amidst the Enemies when all was over put some of his Poitovin Dragoons into his Welch Garisons to prevent Incursions and so returned to Glocester where he kept his Christmas But in the mean time on St. Katherines day the Marshal made a great Slaughter of the Poitovins at Monmouth and he and the banished Lords watched the King's Castles so narrowly that when any went out of them abroad to prey they took nothing else of them for their Ransom but their Heads insomuch that in a short time there lay dead such a multitude of these Foreigners in the high ways and other places as infected the Air. As for the Discourse which passed betwixt the Marshal and Friar Agnellus who was Familiar to the King and his Counsellors and came into Wales to tell the Marshal what the King and his Counsellors said of him and to make Overtures to him it is too long to be here inserted but is exceeding well worth the reading as it stands in Matt. Paris p. 391 392 393. wherein the Marshal makes such a solid Defence of his whole proceeding and discovers so well grounded a Zeal for the Rights of his Country as is sufficient to inspire every English Breast with the love of a righteous Cause Friar Agnellus tells him that the King's Counsellors would have him submit to the King's mercy and that besides other Reasons it was his Interest so to do because the King was richer and more powerful than he and as for foreign Aid where the Marshal could bring one Stranger the King could bring seven The Marshal replies It is true the King is richer and more powerful than I but he is not more powerful than God who is Justice it self in whom I trust in the maintenance and prosecution of mine and the Kingdom 's Right nor do I trust in Foreigners nor will ever seek their Aid unless which God forbid I shall be compelled to it by some unexpected and immutable necessity And I know full well that the King can bring seven for my one and truly I believe in the way that he is in he will soon bring more into the Realm than he will be able to get out again And after he had answered many other Arguments as that he might confide in the King and his Counsellors and had reckoned up many Instances of the Court's Treachery and breach of their Oaths about M. Charta and in several other Cases he says Neither would it be for the King's Honour that I should consent to his will
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
had not hitherto been kept And because the Aids which had been granted to the King had turned to no profit of the King or Kingdom And because of other Grievances which the King promiseth to redress the Parliament came to this Resolution That there should be a Prorogation of three weeks and that if in the mean time the King should freely chuse himself such Counsellors and order the Rights of the Kingdom as should be to their content they would then give him an Answer about the Aid In these three weeks the Lords drew up a Provision by the King's Consent to this effect Concerning the Liberties at another time bought granted and confirmed that for the time to come they be observ'd For the greater security whereof let a new Charter be made which shall make special mention of these things Let those be solemnly excommunicated by all the Prelates who wittingly oppose or hinder the observation of these Liberties and let all those have reparation made them who have suffered in their Liberties since the last Grant And because neither by virtue of an Oath then taken nor for fear of the holy Man Edmund's Excommunication what was then promised has hitherto been kept to avoid the like Peril for the future lest the latter end be worse than the beginning Let four Nobles and powerful Men of the discretest in the Realm be chosen by Assent of Parliament to be of the King's Council and to be sworn that they will order the Affairs of the King and Kingdom faithfully and do justice to all without respect of Persons These shall follow our Lord the King and if not all two at least shall be present to hear all Complaints that come and to give speedy relief to those that suffer wrong they shall supervise the King's Treasure that the Mony given for Publick Vses be so applied And they shall be Conservators of the Liberties And because the Chancellor and Iusticiar are to be frequently with the King they being chosen in Parliament may be two of the Conservators And as they are chosen by the common Assent so they shall not be removed without the same c. P. 641. And when says Matth. Paris the great Men in that Recess of three weeks had diligently treated of these matters which were so exceedingly profitable for the Commonwealth the Enemy of Mankind the Disturber of Peace and the raiser of Division the Devil thro the Pope's Avarice unhappily put a stop to the whole Business For in this nick of time comes a Legate to raise Mony with new and unheard of Powers and this put all into confusion and made work for a long time after Four years after this A. D. 1248. a Parliament meets the sennight after Candlemas at London that they might treat diligently and effectually with our Lord the King of the Affairs of the Realm which is very much disordered and empoverished and enormously maimed in our days P. 743. The Parliament understanding that the King intended to ask an Aid of Money told him that he ought to be asham'd to demand such a thing especially seeing that in the last Exaction of that kind to which the Nobles of England consented with much difficulty he gave them a Charter that he would never burden nor injure them with the like again He was likewise grievously reprehended and no wonder for calling in Aliens and foolishly squandring the Wealth of the Kingdom upon them marrying them to his Wards without their consent and several other his spendthrift and tyrannous Practices And one and all they grievously reproached him for not having as the Magnificent Kings his Predecessors had a Justiciar Chancellor and Treasurer by the Common Council of the Realm and as is fit and expedient but such as follow his will let it be what it will so long as it is for their own Gain and who do not seek the good of the Commonwealth but their own particular profit by gathering Mony and getting the Wards and Revenues to themselves in the first place When our Lord the King heard this being confounded within himself he blush'd knowing that all these things were very true He therefore promised most faithfully that he would readily redress all these things hoping by this humility tho it were feigned to encline all their Hearts to grant him an Aid To whom the whole Parliament which had been often answered with such Promises upon advice made answer That will soon be seen whether the King will reform these things or no and will manifestly appear in a short time We will wait a while with patience and as the King shall carry and behave himself towards us so he shall have us obedient to him in all things Therefore all was adjourned and respited to a fortnight after Midsummer But in the mean time our Lord the King whether it proceeded from his own Spirit or that of his Courtiers who were unwilling to lose any thing of their Power was hardned and more exasperated and never minded to make the least reformation of those Abuses according to his Promise When the day appointed came the Parliament came again to London with a full belief and trust in the King 's firm Promise that leaving his former Errors by the Grace of God bestowed upon him he would encline to more wholesom Advice As soon as they were assembled there came this unhandsom Answer from the King Illepidum responsum All you the Principal Men of England you had a mind to bring the Lord your King to the bent of your uncivil will and pleasure and to impose a very servile Condition upon him That what every one of you may do at pleasure should impudently be denied to him for it is lawful for every body to use whose and what Counsel he will And so it is lawful for every Master of a Family to prefer any one of his House to this or that Office or put him by it or turn him out which you rashly presume to deny even to your Lord the King And this Presumption is still the greater seeing Servants ought by no means to judg their Master nor tie him to their Conditions nor Vassals to do the like by their Prince but all Inferiours whatsoever are to be ordered and directed by the will and pleasure of the Lord and Master For the Servant is not above his Lord as neither the Disciple above his Master and truly he should not be your King but may pass for your Servant if he should thus be brought to your will Wherefore neither will he remove nor Chancellor nor Iusticiar nor Treasurer as you have propounded to order the matter neither will he put any other in their room After the same fashion says M. Paris there was a cavilling Answer to the other wholesom Articles which were sufficiently for the King's Interest But he asks of you an Aid of Mony to recover his Rights in the parts beyond the Seas wherein you your selves are alike concerned
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
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
vel ineptâ contumacia aut contemptu seu proterva voluntate singulari se alienaverit a populo suo nec voluerit per Jura Regni Statuta laudabiles Ordinationes gubernari regulari ex tunc licitum est eis ipsum Regem de regali solio abrogare c. by an antient Statute they had power to depose a King that would not behave himself as he ought nor be ruled by the Laws of the Realm And they instance in this deposing of Edw. 2. but withal as a late and modern thing in respect of the Antiquity of that Statute Such an irrefragable Testimony and Declaration of a Parliament so long since concerning what was ordained in the eldest Ages long before plainly shews the English Constitution and is a full Confutation of the late K. Iames's Memorial at Reswick And this Power seems to be well known to K. Iohn's Barons who when there is occasion talk familiarly of Creating a new King and afterwards were forc'd to do it tho now they only sought their Charter and did not attempt to take from him his Kingdom which the Pope indeed says but it was not true So far have I cleared them from Presumption as Vassals now as Knights It is true their Tenure was to assist the King against the Enemies of the Realm but how if he turn'd so himself Unjust Oppression which is the Pope's own Supposition is no friendly part Must they then aid him against the Realm and be the Instruments of his unjust Oppression upon themselves Their Duty and Service was to the Realm in chief to him it was subaltern And therefore knowing their Duty better than the Pope did they all left K. Iohn all but seven before he could consent to the Parliament at Running-Mead For it is plain the Pope would have had them Passive-Obedience Knights and a Contradiction to their very Order whereby for certain they had forfeited their Spurs Yea but the Barons were Iudges and Executors in their own Cause And who can help it if they were made so in the first Institution and from the very Foundation of this Government As soon as the Saxons had chosen from among themselves one King this the Mirror says expresly was the Jurisdiction of the King's Companions For tho the King had no Peer yet if he wronged any of his People it was not fit that he that was Party should be likewise Judg nor for the same reason any of his Commissioners and therefore these Companions were by their place to right the Subject in Parliament Mirror p. 9. Et tout soit que le Roye ne devoit aver nul Peere en la terre pur ceo nequidant que le Roy de son tort s il pecha vers ascun d son people ne nul de ses Commissaires poit eÌ„ Iudge Partee couvient per droit que le Roy ust Compaignions pur oyer terminer aux Parliaments trestouts les breves plaints de torts de le Roy de la Roigne de lour Infans de eux especialment de que torts len ne poit aver autrement common droit The same is more largely set down by the Lord Chief Justice Bracton and therefore I will transcribe it in his own words Lib. 2. cap. 16. f. 34. Rex autem habet superiorem Deum s. Item Legem per quam factus est Rex Item Curiam suam videlicet Comites Barones quia Comites dicuntur quasi Socii Regis qui habet Socium habet Magistrum ideo si Rex fuerit sine fraeno i. sine Lege debent ei fraenum ponere nisi ipsimet fuerint cum Rege sine fraeno tunc clamabunt subditi dicent Domine Iesu Christe in chamo fraeno maxillas eorum constringe ad quos Dominus vocabo sâ—per eos gentem robustam longinquam ignotam cujus linguam ignorabunt quae destruet eos evellet radices eorum de terrâ a talibus judicabuntur quia subditos noluerunt justè judicare in fine ligatis manibus pedibus eorum mittet eos in caminum ignis tenebras exteriores ubi erit fletus stridor dentium He says the King has these above him God also the Law which makes him a King also his Parliament namely the Earls and Barons who ought to bridle a lawless King c. In this large Passage you plainly see that what the Barons did was so far from being the absurd and presumptuous Usurpation of making themselves Judges and Executors in their own Cause that it was their bounden Duty It was not only lawful for them to restrain and bridle a lawless King but it was incumbent upon them under the greatest Penalties and neither lawful nor safe for them to let it alone So that here the Barons were hard besett the Pope delivers them up to Satan for what they did and they had exposed themselves to the Vengeance of God and going to Hell if they had not done it But they chose to do their Duty to God and their distressed Country and to venture the causeless Curse from Rome I might multiply Quotations out of Fleta and others to the same purpose but what I have set down is sufficient and therefore I shall rather take this occasion to admire the Wisdom of the English Constitution which seems to be built for perpetuity For how can a Government fail which has such lasting Principles within it and a several respective Remedy lodged in the very bowels of it The King has a known Power of causing all his Subjects to keep the Law that is an effectual Remedy against Lawlesness and Anarchy and the Parliament has a Power if need be to hold the King to the observation of the Laws and that is a preservative against Tyranny This is the Palladium of our Government which cannot be stoln as theirs was from Troy for the Keepers of it are too many to be kill'd because every English man has an interest in it for which reason neither can it be bought and sold so as to make a Title and a man of a moderate Understanding may easily undertake that it shall never be preacht away from us And hereby England is rendred the noblest Commonwealth and Kingdom in the World I name Common-wealth first because K. Iames the first in one of his Speeches to the Parliament says he is the Great Servant of the Common-wealth From hence I infer that this was a Commonwealth before he was the Great Servant of it Great and little is not the dispute for it is for the Honour and Interest of so glorious a State to have a Prince as Great as they can make him As to compare great things with small it is for the honour of the City to have a magnificent Lord Mayor And K. Iames told us no news in naming his Office for this is the Country as Fortescue's whole Book shews us where the King is appointed for the