the dead received no burial, Religion had no ministers, and the people no God. Such a state could not long be endured, and John was never peculiarly famed for fortitude; he therefore recalled the Ecclesiastics he had formerly banished, and meeting them at Winchester, he besought them, with streaming eyes and bended knees, to have pity upon him. After they had proceeded to the Chapter-house of that City, Stephen Langton, the Archbishop of Canterbury, gave the King absolution from his Excommunication, who, holding the book of the Gospels, took the following Oath administered to him by the Prelate: "That he would diligently defend the ordinances of the Holy Church, and that his hand should be against all her enemies that the good laws of his ancestors, and especially those of King Edward the Confessor, should be recalled, and evil ones destroyed; and that his subjects should receive justice according to the upright decrees of his Courts. He likewise swore, that all Corporations and private persons whom the Interdict had damaged, should receive a full restitution of all which had been taken away, before the time of the approaching Easter, if his Sentence of Excommunication were first removed. He swore, moreover, fidelity and obedience to Pope Innocent and his Catholic successors, and that he would give them that superiority which was already contained in writing."

Matth. Paris, Hist. Maj. Edit. Paris, 1644, p. 166, Folio.

Thus was John freed from the ecclesiastical outlawry under which he had so long lived; but the Interdict which darkened his Kingdom was not removed until the year 1214, when Nicolas, Bishop of Tusculum, the Papal Legate, relaxed it's rigours at London on the twenty-ninth day of June. Both the King and his Realm were then in a comparatively prosperous state to that which had for some years existed; but with these terrors vanished all the promises of John, he deemed the night of his misfortunes past, that Innocent would be his support, and that his Barons would now cease to contend for the liberties of Magna Charta. This hope was as futile as it was deceitful; the Barons finding that John was only temporising with them, convened a general assembly of the Peers and Ecclesiastics at Saint Paul's, when Langton, the Archbishop, stood up and addressed the convocation in these terms: a "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 the First of England, the which if ye are willing to support, your long-lost liberties may be restored in all their original purity of

a Matt. Paris, Hist. Maj. Edit. Ibid. p. 175.

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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 ardu ous undertaking, and at the same time assured them, that the Covenant then made, would reflect honour 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. But before such a conclusion put the seal of certainty upon the endeavours of the English Barons, many were the difficulties they had to encounter, as well from the unwillingness of the King, as from those of his friends who sup ported him against them.

Yet, notwithstanding this relation, which is derived from the History of King John, as written by Matthew Paris, Sir William Blackstone seems rather inclined to attribute the discontent of the Barons to some cause unconnected with their

liberties; and indeed, the various historians of that eventful period, assign wholly different reasons for their conduct: the words, however, of that celebrated judicial commentator are of too great importance to be omitted here.

"It must be acknowledged," says Blackstone, in his Introduction to the English Chartæ, "that very many of the articles, contained in the Charter of King Henry the First, were in substance afterwards repeated in that of King John, as will appear by a comparison of the latter in the present edition, with the former as inserted in the notes.a Yet it cannot but seem very extraordinary, that since Matthew Paris himself informs us, that copies of King Henry the First's Charter were sent (A. D. 1100.) to all the Counties in England, and deposited in the principal Monasteries; since the same were expressly confirmed by his grandson, King Henry the Second, as appears from his Charter; and since the laws of King Henry the First were commanded to be observed by King John's own authority, on the 4th of August; this Charter should notwithstanding have been so totally forgotten by all the Prelates and Barons assembled at St. Paul's within three weeks afterwards, that it's discovery by the Archbishop should be a matter of such novelty and triumph: nay, that the King

The comparison may also be made by a reference to the Translations attached to this Essay.-Vide Magna Charta and Notes.

himself, at Easter 1215, should want information what those laws and liberties were, that were then so earnestly demanded of him. Nor, indeed, if this charter was thus uppermost in the minds of the Barons, can we at all account for their forgetfulness at the Congress of Runningmede; the name of King Henry the First not once occurring in the Capitula, or rough draught, of the Great Charter, nor even in the Charter itself. It is possible however, that though the circumstances with which it is embellished are very suspicious and improbable, yet the story itself may have so far a foundation in truth, that the recollection and remembrance of the Charters, which the King's predecessors had granted, might suggest to the Prelates and Barons the propriety of demanding another; and therefore might teach them the greater expedience of having the liberties they claimed openly set down in writing, than of relying on the general terms of the oath which the King had just taken at Winchester."

"For it is agreed by all our Historians, that the Great Charter of King John was for the most part compiled from the ancient customs of the Realm, or the Laws of King Edward the Confessor; by which they usually mean the old Common Law, which was established under our Saxon Princes, before the rigors of fœdal tenure and other hardships were imported from the continent by the Kings of the Norman line. But the immediate