is silent about these, although he repeats the confirmation of his grandfather's charter. The people, however, 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 favorite 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."—HALLAM's Middle Ages, vol. ii., p. 320.

2. Langton's Discovery of the Charter of Henry I. to the Barons.-"The barons, finding that John was only temporizing with them, convened a general assembly of the peers and ecclesiastics at St. Paul's, when Langton, the archbishop, stood up and addressed the convocation in these terms: 'Ye have heard, when at Winchester, before the king was absolved, I compelled him to swear that the existing evil statutes should be destroyed, and that more salutary laws, namely, those of King Edward the Confessor, should be observed by the whole kingdom. In support of these things are ye now convened; and I here disclose to you a newly discovered charter of King Henry I. of England, the which if ye are willing to support, your long-lost liberties may be restored in all their original purity of character.' The prelate then proceeded to read the charter with a loud voice, which so animated the minds of all present, that with the greatest sincerity and joy they swore, in the archbishop's presence, that at a proper season their deeds should avouch what they had then declared, and that even to death itself they would defend those liberties. Langton, on the other hand, promised his most faithful assistance in the execution of their arduous undertaking, and at the same time assured them that the covenant then made would reflect honor on their names through successive generations. This, then, was the conclusion of the first meeting for securing the king's consent to the Magna Charta; from the decisions of which none of that assembly for a moment withdrew their support until the object which they had so long sought was obtained, and the liberties which preceding kings refused to grant were entirely and wholly theirs."-THOMPSON's Magna Charta, p. 12, 13.

3. Case of De Vesci.-"Henry Knighton, a canon-regular of Leicester abbey, who lived in the time of Richard II., relates an improbable circumstance (to others the affair appears extremely probable) particularly connected with this baron-De Vesci-wherein he affirms that the incontinence of John was the real cause of the general insurrection of the peerage against him, charging him with vitiating their wives, and then deriding them. He adds, too, that Eustace de Vesci, having married a very beautiful woman-Margaret, daughter of William, king of Scotland-whom he kept far distant from the court, John became

enamored of her, and carefully considered how he might possess her. Sitting one day at table with the baron, King John, observing a ring he wore, took it from him, and said that he had a similar stone, which he would have set in gold of the same pattern; and having thus procured it, he immediately sent it in De Vesci's name to his wife, charging her by that token instantly to come to him, if she ever expected to see him alive. Believing this message, she speedily departed to the court, but on her arrival there, she met her husband, who happened to be riding out; and an explanation having taken place, a disguised courtesan was sent to the king as her substitute. Upon John's discovery of this deceit, he was so enraged that De Vesci fled into the north, destroying some of the king's houses in his passage; whilst many of the nobles who had experienced the same treatment, going with him, they seized upon the king's castles, and at length were joined by the citizens of London. As this baron was so inveterate an enemy to King John, it is not surprising to find him a principal leader in the insurrection that followed."-THOMPSON'S Magna Charta, p. 291.

4. Simplicity of the Charter.—It is observable that the language of the great charter is simple, brief, general without being abstract, and expressed in terms of authority, not of argument; yet commonly so reasonable as to carry with it the intrinsic evidence of its own fitness. It was understood by the simplest of the unlettered age for whom it was intended. It was remembered by them; and though they did not perceive the extensive consequences which might be derived from it, their feelings were, however, unconsciously exalted by its generality and grandeur.

It was a peculiar advantage that the consequences of its principles were, if we may so speak, only discovered gradually and slowly. It gave out on each occasion only as much of the spirit of liberty and reformation as the circumstances of succeeding generations required, and as their character would safely bear. For almost five centuries it was appealed to as the decisive authority on behalf of the people, though commonly so far only as the necessities of each case demanded. Its effect in these contests was not altogether unlike the grand process by which nature employs snows and frosts to cover her delicate germs, and to hinder them from rising above the earth till the atmosphere has acquired the mild and equal temperature which insures them against blights. On the English nation, undoubtedly, the charter has contributed to bestow the union of establishment with improvement. To all mankind it set the first example of the progress of a great nation for centuries, in blending their tumultuary democracy and haughty nobility with a fluctuating and vaguely limited monarchy, so as at length to form, from these discordant materials, the only form of free government which experience had shown to be reconcilable with widely extended dominions. Whoever, in any future age, or unborn nation, may admire the felicity of the expedient which converted the power of taxation into the shield of liberty, by which discretionary and secret imprisonment was rendered impracticable, and portions of the people were trained to exercise a larger share

of judicial power than was ever allotted to them in any other civilized state, in such a manner as to secure instead of endangering public tranquillity ;—whoever exults at the spectacle of enlightened and independent assemblies, who, under the eye of a well-informed nation, discuss and determine the laws and policy likely to make communities great and happy;-whoever is capable of comprehending all the effects of such institutions, with all their possible improvements upon the mind and genius of a people, is surely bound to speak with reverential gratitude of the authors of the great charter. To have produced it, to have preserved it, to have matured it, constitute the immortal claim of England on the esteem of mankind. Her Bacons and Shakspeares, her Miltons and Newtons, with all the truth which they have revealed, and all the generous virtue which they have inspired, are of inferior value, when compared with the subjection of men and their rulers to the principles of justice; if, indeed, it be not more true that these mighty spirits could not have been formed, except under equal laws, nor roused to full activity without the influence of that spirit which the great charter breathed over their forefathers.-MACKINTOSH's England, i.

219-222.

5. Effect of the giving of the Charter on King John.-A celebrated English historian speaks in the following terms concerning the manner in which the late grant of Magna Charta preyed upon the health and the disposition of John: 'Great reioising," says Holinshed, was made for this conclusion of peace betwixt the king and his barons, the people iudging that God had touched the king's heart, and mollified it, whereby happie daies were come for the realm of England, as though it had beene delivered out of the bondage of Ægypt; but were much deceived, for the king having condescended to make such grant of liberties, farre contrarie to his mind, was right sorrowful in his heart, cursed his mother that bare him, the houre that he was borne, and the paps that gave him sucke, wishing that he had received death by violence of sword or knife, in steed of naturall norishment: he whetted his teeth, he did bite now on one staffe, and now on an other, as he walked, and oft brake the same in pieces when he had done, and with such disordered behauior and furious gestures he uttered his greefe in such sort that the noblemen verie well perceiued the inclination of his inward affection concerning these things, before the breaking up of the councell, and therefore sore lamented the state of the realme, gessing what would become of his impatiencie and displeasant taking of the matter.”

If this melancholy description was a real picture of John's mind after the conclusion of Magna Charta, he was indeed reduced to a miserable state; and this in a twofold sense, for he was not only bent under the weight of his present evils, but his peers, perceiving how much his extorted concession oppressed his thoughts, and fearful of his swerving from it, were prepared to resort to the same violent methods for its preservation as those which they had already made use of to gain it. The future actions of John's life were then smouldering in his breast, like the sleeping, yet unsubdued fires of a volcano: his intentions were how

ever already suspected by many of his peers, and while the king was secretly providing for the success of his plans, they were not less anxious for the security of theirs. Hence arose a mutual mistrust, which the sealed deed of Magna Charta could by no means dissipate; but it was regarded, by one party at least, as only a temporizing expedient, to put an end to the civil feuds which were spread over all the kingdom. In the midst of the schemes which John had commenced to render void that engagement, which he could never remember but with agony, he died suddenly at Newark, on the 19th of October, 1215, by poison, as it is related by some writers, or through the infirmities induced by a broken heart and constitution, as it is asserted by others. There are but few, however, at the present time, who give any degree of credence to the former relation; yet whoever attentively considers the utter hatred which was entertained for John by almost all his subjects, and more especially by the ecclesiastics, will perceive but little reason why this account should be supposed wholly traditional. The celebrated Rapin, and his annotator Morant, have thought it a sufficient argument against its truth to remark that it was improbable for "a man to poison himself to be revenged of another;" but as the mistaken friar believed he was acting in the most patriotic and virtuous manner, in rescuing England from a tyrannic power, so he gave himself without scruple as a martyr to the cause, confidently expecting as a reward, an immediate and eternal beatitude. The same authors also observe that this circumstance is neither mentioned by any contemporary historians, nor even by any one who lived within sixty years of that time. This argument will go, however, but a short distance to prove the falsity of the relation. Matthew Paris, and from him the principal account of John's reign is derived, was too great an enemy of that king to allow of any vices in the opposing party; particularly in that class of society by a member of which this act is said to have been committed. During the space of sixty years it was in every one's memory, and after that period it is more than probable, that, had there not existed some foundation for such a report, it could never have descended to later times through the medium of written history "-THOMPSON'S Magna Charta, p. 32 et seq.

6. Personal Liberty as Secured by the Charter." The thirty-ninth article of this charter is that important clause which forbids arbitrary imprisonment and punishment without lawful trial: 'Let no freeman be imprisoned or outlawed, or in any manner injured, nor proceeded against by us, otherwise than by the legal judgment of his peers, or by the law of the land.' In this clause are clearly contained the writ of habeas corpus and the trial by jury-the most effectual securities against oppression which the wisdom of man has hitherto been able to devise. It is surely more praiseworthy in these haughty nobles to have covered all freemen with the same buckler as themselves than not to have included serfs in the same

protection: 'We shall sell, delay, or deny justice to none.' No man can carry farther the principle that justice is the grand debt of every Government to the people, which cannot be paid without rendering law cheap, prompt, and equal.

Nor is the twentieth section unworthy of the like commendation: A freeman shall be amerced in proportion to his offence, saving his contenement, and a merchant saving his merchandise.' And surely the barons must be acquitted of an exclusive spirit who subjoin and the villain saving his wagonage.' It seems to be apparent from Glanville that villainage was a generic term for servitude in the reign of Henry II., so that the villain of the Great Charter must have been at least a species of serf. The provision which directs that the supreme civil court shall be stationary, instead of following the king's person, is a proof of that regard to the regularity, accessibility, independence, and dignity of public justice, of which the general predominance peculiarly characterizes that venerable monument of English liberty. The liberty of coming to England and going from it, secured to foreign merchants of countries with whom this kingdom is at peace (unless there be a previous prohibition, which Lord Coke interprets to mean by act of Parliament), even if we should ascribe it to the solicitude of the barons for the constant supply of their castles with foreign luxuries, becomes on that very account entitled to regard, inasmuch as the language must be held to be deliberately chosen to promote and insure the purpose of the law."-MACKINTOSH.