out other amends; and if any one, hereafter shall privileges of retain anything thus taken, he shall make heavy the people. restitution above what shall be found to have been taken. WITNESSES: Maurice bishop of London, Gundolf bishop, William bishop elect, Henry earl, Simon earl Robert de Montfort, Henry de Portous, at London when I was crowned. Note the few witnesses compared with Magna Charta. This charter was renewed by Stephen and Henry II., and served in John's reign as the text upon which the barons founded their claim for restoration of " cient liberties." an CONTEMPORARY EXPOSITION WILLIAM OF MALMESBURY (1135) He (Henry) was elected king: though some trifling dissensions had first arisen among the nobility, which were allayed chiefly through the exertions of Henry, Earl of Warwick.. He immediately promulgated an edict throughout England, annulling the illegal ordinances of his brother, and of Ranulph; he remitted taxes; released prisoners; drove the flagitious from court; restored the nightly use of lights within the palace, which had been omitted in his brother's time; and renewed the operation of the ancient laws, confirming them with his own oath, and that of the nobility, that they might not be eluded. A joyful day then seemed to dawn on the people, when the light of fair promise shone forth after such repeated clouds of distress. WILLIAM OF MALMESBURY, Chronicles of the Kings of England. (Giles's Translation) V. 125. ROGER OF WENDOVER (1235) To induce them (the barons) to espouse his cause and make him king, he promised them to revise and amend the laws by which England had been oppressed in the time of his deceased brother. To this the clergy and people replied that, if he would confirm to them by charter all the liberties and customs which were observed in the reign of the holy King Edward, they would accede to his wishes and make him their king. This Henry readily engaged to do, and, confirming the same by an oath, he was crowned king at Westminster, on the day of the Annunciation of St. Mary, with the acclamations of the clergy and people; after which he caused these principles to be reduced to writing, to the honour of the holy church and the peace of his people. There were as many of these charters made as there are counties in England, and by the king's orders they were placed in the abbeys of each county for a memorial. ROGER OF WENDOVER, Flowers of History. (Giles's Translation) I. 448. CRITICAL COMMENT HALLAM (1818) Nor does the charter of Henry I., though so much celebrated, contain anything specially expressed but a remission of unreasonable reliefs, wardships, and other feudal burdens. It proceeds, however, to declare that he gives his subjects the laws of Edward the Confessor, with the emendations made by his father with consent of his barons. The people had begun to look back to a more ancient standard of law. The Norman conquest, and all that ensued upon it, had endeared the memory of their Saxon government. Its disorders were forgotten, or rather were less odious to a rude nation, than the coercive justice by which they were afterward restrained. Hence it became the favourite cry to demand the laws of Edward the Confessor; and the Normans themselves, as they grew dissatisfied with the royal administration, fell into these English sentiments. But what these laws were, or more properly, perhaps, these customs, subsisting in the Confessor's age, was not very distinctly understood. So far, however, was clear, that the vigorous feudal servitudes, the weighty tributes upon poorer freemen, had never prevailed before the conquest. In claiming the laws of Edward the Confessor, our ancestors meant but the redress of grievances which tradition told them had not always existed. HENRY HALLAM, Europe During the Middle Ages. I. 349. STUBBS (1873) The understanding to govern well was made not only with the archbishop as the first constitutional adviser of the crown, but with the whole nation; it was embodied in a charter addressed to all the faithful, and attested by the witan who were present, the paucity of whose names may perhaps indicate the small number of powerful men who had as yet adhered to him. . . . The form of the charter forcibly declares the ground which he was taking. . . . Perhaps the most significant articles of the whole document are those by which he provided that the benefit of the feudal concessions shall not be engrossed by the tenants in chief: in like manner shall the men of my barons relieve their lands at the hand of their lords by a just and lawful relief.' WILLIAM STUBBS, Constitutional History of England. I. 330. J. R. GREEN (1874) Henry's charter is important, not merely as the direct precedent for the Great Charter of John, but as the first limitation which had been imposed on the despotism established by the conquest. J. R. GREEN, Short History of the English People. Chap. II., Sec. VI., p. 91. POLLOCK AND MAITLAND (1895) During the whole Norman period there was very little legislation. . . . It seems probable that Rufus set the example of granting charters of liberties to the people at large. In 1093, sick and in terror of death, he set his seal to some document that has not come down to us. Captives were to be released, debts forgiven, good and holy laws maintained. . . . Henry at his coronation, compelled to purchase adherents, granted a charter full of valuable and fairly definite concessions. was going back to his father's ways. (William I.) . . . Above all the laga Eadwardi as amended by William I. was to be restored. He POLLOCK AND MAITLAND, History of English Law. I. 73. RANSOME (1895) Henry's charter is a very important document, for it shows us what were the chief grievances of which nobles and clergy complained, and the way in which they might be remedied. CYRIL RANSOME, Advanced History of England. 112. GARDINER (1895) The charter of Henry I., which had been produced at St. Paul's the year before (1213), was again read, and all present swore to force John to accept it as the rule of his own government. Magna Charta, or the Great Charter, as the articles were called after John confirmed them, was won by a combination between all classes of freemen, and it gave rights to them all. S. R. GARDINER, Student's History of England. 181. CHAPTER II MAGNA CHARTA (1215) SUGGESTIONS 1215, was the result of Through the winter THIS Charter, signed by King John, June 15th, the struggle between the king and the barons. of 1215, the barons had presented themselves in arms before the king, and preferred their claims a resumption of the old English customs and common law, against which the king was openly defiant. At Easter the barons again renewed their demands. London, Exeter, Lincoln one by one - city and county joined the barons in defiance of the king. Unconditional submission followed the discussion of the document; it was agreed upon and signed in a single day. One copy of it still remains in the British Museum. As Magna Charta forms the basis of all later English and American written statements of free institutions, the document as a whole should be read with care, although many of its articles have ceased to have a direct relation with present history. Each article illuminates the legal and constitutional status of the thirteenth century, and should be examined with that point in mind. Articles 36, 39, and 40, the two fundamental principles of all later constitutional government, should be committed to memory, since they are many times referred to throughout this volume. For Outlines and Material, see Appendix A. DOCUMENT Magna Charta (1215) THE GREAT CHARTER OF KING JOHN, GRANTED JUNE 15, A. D. 1215. John, by the Grace of God, King of England, The Statutes Lord of Ireland, Duke of Normandy, Aquitaine, 9-13, transof the Realm, I. and Count of Anjou, to his Archbishops, Bishops, literated Abbots, Earls, Barons, Justiciaries, Foresters, from E. S. Sheriffs, Governors, Officers, and to all Bailiffs, and (1853). Creasy |