his flight out of the kingdom. Henry committed this act of injustice, not only without any trial, but even without any suspicion or possibility of guilt. To put a stop to such outrageous exertions of arbitrary power, the thirty-ninth article was conceded by king John; which is the most valuable stipulation in the whole charter, and the grand security of the liberties, persons, and properties of the people of England, and of the whole British dominions, which, unless this law is violated, cannot be unjustly invaded. The expressions, "We will not go upon him-we will not send upon him," signify that the king would not sit in judgment, or pronounce sentence, on any freeman, either in person or by his judges, except by the verdict of a jury, or by a process conducted according to the established laws of the land. By the laws of the land, may probably be intended trials by ordeals, by judicial combats, and by compurgators, as they were all then in use, and agreeable to law.

Next to the substitution of arbitrary will in the place of law, the king's personal interfering in lawsuits depending before his courts, in order to interrupt or pervert the regular course of justice, was one of the greatest grievances of that period. This was done in so open and shameless a manner, that the bribes received by the kings for these iniquitous practices were regularly entered in the revenue accounts of every year, and amounted to large sums. To put a stop to this grievous and unjust abuse, king John promises, "To no man will we sell, to no man will we deny or delay right and justice."

In the forty-fifth article, king John promised to appoint none to be judges but who had a competent knowledge of law. To remove the inconvenience attending the courts of law being obliged to follow the king's court from place to place, the seventeenth article was framed. Amercements for trivial offences, or exorbitant and ruinous ones for real delinquencies, were among the greatest grievances of that period. The causes for which amercements were imposed were innumerable; and their rates were unsettled, and they brought much money into the royal coffers. They were frequently excessive; so much so, that those who were amerced were said to be in misericordia regis, or at the king's mercy. To set some bounds to these oppressions was the intention of the twentieth, twenty-first, and twenty-second articles, by which it is declared, that earls and barons shall not be amerced except by their peers, and that according to the degree of their delinquency; and no freeholder or freeman shall be heavily amerced for a slight fault, nor above measure even for a great misdemeanour; still saving to a freeholder his freehold, to a merchant his merchandise, and to a rustic his implements of husbandry. The savings to these different parties are called their contenement; which signifies such a reservation of their estate and goods, as enabled them to maintain their former rank and consequence, and pursue their ordinary

business. The contenement of a soldier was his arms, of a scholar his books; and by the law of Wales, his harp made a part of the contenement of a Welsh gentleman.

The prerogative of pre-emption of all things necessary for their court and castles, commonly called purveyance, which belonged to the kings of England at that period, was a source of infinite vexations and injuries to their people. This was sometimes owing to the avarice, and sometimes to the official insolence and cruelty of the purveyors, who attended the court in all its motions. The miseries inflicted on the country by these tyrannical purveyors in the reign of William Rufus are thus pathetically described by Eadmer, who flourished in those times, and beheld the scenes he describes :-"Those who attended the court, plundered and destroyed the whole country through which the king passed, without any control. Some of them were so intoxicated with malice, that when they could not consume all the provisions in the houses which they invaded, they either sold or burnt them. After having washed their horses' feet with the liquors they could not drink, they let them run on the ground, or destroyed them in some other way. But the cruelties they committed on the masters of families, and the indecencies they offered to their wives and daughters, were too shocking to be described." Under better princes, these enormities were no doubt in some degree restrained ; but it is not likely that king John's courtiers and purveyors were more modest than those of William Rufus. To remedy these intolerable hardships is the design of the twenty-eighth, thirtieth, and thirty-first articles.

The excessive attachment to hunting and field-sports, indulged in by the sovereigns of the Norman race, was productive of innumerable mischiefs to their subjects. They converted great tracts of country, in almost every county in England, into forests for their game; and these forests, and the game contained in them, were guarded by the most cruel and sanguinary laws. For it was a received doctrine, that the king might make what laws he pleased for the protection of his forests; and that, in making and executing these laws, he was not under any obligation to observe the ordinary rules of justice. In consequence of this doctrine, the forest laws were dictated with such a spirit of cruelty, and executed with such severity, that they were objects of universal terror, and sources of distress to those who were so unhappy as to live near the precincts of any of the royal forests. To mitigate in some degree the cruelty of these laws, and the severity with which they were executed, was the intention of the forty-fourth, forty-seventh, and forty-eighth articles But these were insufficient to protect the subjects; and therefore, in the ninth year of the following reign, (Henry III.) the barons of England obtained a separate charter, called Charta de Foresta, containing more precise and particular regulations.

The barons who procured these concessions from the crown, were not ignorant that king John granted them with extreme reluctance, and with the secret intention to resume some of them at a more convenient season; and therefore they took every precaution to render the charter effectual, and to secure the rights and liberties which they had obtained. The great seal was not only affixed to it in due form, but both the king and the barons took a solemn oath to observe it in all particulars with good faith, and without dissimulation. To put it out of the king's power to break through his engagements, and to enable the barons effectually to support the charter, all the king's foreign auxiliaries were immediately sent out of the kingdom.

It was not till after a long and bloody struggle, that the people of England obtained the peaceable enjoyment of the rights and liberties contained in the GREAT CHARTER of King John, and in the similar char ters of his successors. With much difficulty, by slow degrees, and at a great expense of blood and treasure, was the venerable fabric of the BRITISH CONSTITUTION erected. May the wisdom of our legislators, under the divine blessing and guidance, make such improvements and reformation upon it, as will make it remain for ever the pride and happiness of those who enjoy its blessings, and the envy and admiration of surrounding nations! *

Translation of the Great Charter of King John, granted June 15th, A. D. 1215, in the seventeenth year of his reign.

JOHN, by the grace of God, King of England, Lord of Ireland, Duke of Normandy and Aquitaine, and Earl of Anjou,-To all his archbishops, bishops, abbots, earls, barons, justiciaries, foresters, sheriffs, commanders, officers, and to all his bailiffs and faithful subjects, wisheth health. Know ye, that We, from our regard to God and for the salvation of our own soul, and of the souls of our ancestors and of our heirs, to the honour of God, and the exaltation of holy church, and amendment of our kingdom, by the advice of our venerable fathers, Stephen archbishop of Canterbury, primate of all England, and cardinal of the holy Roman church; Henry archbishop of Dublin, William 'of London, Peter of Winchester, Joceline of Bath and Glastonbury, Hugh of Lincoln, Walter of Worcester, William of Coventry, Benedict of Rochester, bishops; Master Pandulph, the Pope's subdeacon and familiar; brother Emeric, master of the Knights Templars in England; and of those noble persons, William Mar

* Henry's History of Great Britain.

ischal Earl of Pembroke, William Earl of Salisbury, William Earl of Warren, William Earl of Arundel, Allan of Galloway, Constable of Scotland, Warren Fitzgerald, Peter Fitzherbert, Hubert de Burgh, Steward of Poictou, Hugh de Nevil, Matthew Fitzherbert, Thomas Basset, Allan Basset, Philip de Albany, Robert de Roppel, John Marischal, John Fitzhugh, and of others of our liegemen, have granted to God, and by this our present charter, have confirmed, for us and our heirs for ever:

1. That the English Church shall be free, and shall have her whole rights and liberties unhurt; and I will this to be observed in such a manner, that it may appear from them that the freedom of elections, which was reputed most necessary to the English church, which we granted, and by our charter confirmed, and obtained the confirmation of it from Pope Innocent III. before the rupture between us and our barons, was of our own free will. Which charter we shall observe, and we will it to be observed with good faith by our heirs for ever. We have also granted to all the freemen of our kingdom, for us and our heirs for ever, all the underwritten liberties, to be enjoyed and held by them and their heirs, of us and our heirs.

2. If any of our earls or barons, or others who hold of us in chief by military service, shall die, and at his death his heir shall be of full age, and shall owe a relief, he shall have his inheritance for the ancient relief, viz. the heir or heirs of an earl, a whole earl's barony, for one hundred pounds; the heir or heirs of a baron, a whole barony, for one hundred marks; the heir or heirs of a knight, a whole knight's-fee, for one hundred shillings at most; and he who owes less, shall give less, according to the ancient custom of fees.

3. But if the heir of any such be under age, and in wardship, when he comes to age he shall have his inheritance without relief and without fine.

4. The warden of an heir, who is under age, shall not take of the lands of the heir, any but reasonable issues and reasonable customs, and reasonable services, and that without destruction, and waste of the men or the goods; and if we commit the custody of any such lands to a sheriff, or to any other person who is bound to answer to us for the issues of them, and he shall make destruction or waste upon the ward-lands, we will recover damages from him, and the lands shall be submitted to two legal and discreet men of that fee, who shall answer for the issues to us, or to him to whom we have assigned them; and if we granted or sold to any one, the custody of any such lands, and he shall make destruction or waste, he shall lose the custody; and it shall be submitted to two legal and discreet men of that fee, who shall answer to us in like manner as was said before.

5. Besides, the warden, as long as he hath the custody of the lands, shall keep in order the houses, parks, warrens, ponds, mills, and other things

belonging to them, out of their issues; and shall deliver to the heir when he is at age, his whole estate, provided with ploughs and other instruments of husbandry, according to what the season requires, and the profits of the lands can reasonably afford.

6. Heirs shall be married without disparagement, and so that before the marriage is contracted, it shall be notified to the relations of the heir by consanguinity.

7. A widow, after the death of her husband, shall immediately, and without difficulty, have her marriage goods and her inheritance; nor shall she give any thing for her dower, or her marriage goods, or her inheritance which her husband and she held on the day of his death; and she may remain in her husband's house forty days after his death, within which time her dower shall be assigned. No widow shall be compelled to marry herself while she chooses to live without a husband, but so that she shall give security that she will not marry herself without our consent, if she holds of us, or without the consent of the lord of whom she holds, if she holds of another.

9. Neither we nor our bailiffs shall seize any lands or rents for any debt, while the chattels of the debtor are sufficient for the payment of the debt; nor shall the sureties of the debtor be distrained, while the principal debtor is able to pay the debt; and if the principal debtor fail in payment of the debt, not having wherewith to pay, the sureties shall answer for the debt; and if they please they shall have the lands and rents of the debtor until satisfaction be made to them for the debt which they had before paid for him, unless the principal debtor can show that he is discharged from it by the said sureties.

10. If any one hath borrowed any thing from the Jews, more or less, and dies before that debt is paid, the debt shall pay no interest as long as the heir shall be under age, of whomsoever he holds; and if that debt shall fall into our hands, we will not take any thing, except the chattels contained in the bond.

11. And if any one dies indebted to the Jews, his wife shall have her dower, and shall pay nothing of that debt; and if children of the defunct remain who are under age, necessaries shall be provided for them, according to the tenement which belonged to the defunct; and out of the surplus the debt shall be paid, saving the rights of the lords of whom the lands are held. The same rules shall be observed with respect to debts owing to others than Jews.

12. No scutage or aid shall be imposed, except by the common council of our kingdom, but for redeeming our body, for making our eldest son a knight, and for once marrying our eldest daughter; and for these only a reasonable aid shall be demanded. This extends to the aids of the city