292 Broughton Gifford. 
Being summoned to the King, he denied the charge, alleging that 
the lady was a consenting party to the whole affair, but he tendered 
to the King a fine of 300 marks for her marriage without the royal 
license. This was accepted on the easy condition that the lady 
made no further complaint. These proceedings would seem to be 
a friendly suit, instituted for the purpose of preventing in a pro- 
pitiatory way the penalties incurred by a second marriage without 
the King’s permission. Matilda left by her second marriage three 
daughters,’ Catherine, Matilda, and Alianora, coheirs, of - their 
mother’s immense property, and, as we shall see by and by, of a 
portion of their father’s. His legal troubles on account of this 
marriage were not yet at an end, for in 1292 he was summoned by 
the Clifford family, who contested his claim to some lands in that 
barony which he held in right of his deceased wife. He answered 
that he could not plead without the children he had by her, and that 
two of them, Matilda and Alianora, were under age. The Sheriff 
therefore was ordered to produce the bodies of the said Matilda and 
Alianora, at Salop, fifteen days after Michaelmas next, that they 
might be viewed in Court. Matilda the eldest of the two came, 
and being found under age, as alleged, the trial was postponed. 
He served again in Wales, and in Guienne, but the last of John 
Gifford’s services may be said to be the greatest, both for his own 
fame and his country’s good. He was a principal agent in one of 
the most important victories ever won in the cause of constitutional 
government. Edward I., in the prosecution of his insular and conti- 
nental wars, had been guilty of many violations of the Great 
Charter. The Baronage of England, headed by Bohun Earl of 
Hereford, the Constable, and Bigod Earl of Norfolk, the Marshal 
of England, protested in the Exchequer chamber, before the Trea- 
surer and Judges, against the King’s extortions, his illegal seizures 
of private property, his enormous duties (“‘the evil toll’) on wool, 
amounting to one fifth of the whole income of the land, and parti- 
cularly against the collection of an eighth, which had been granted 
by a portion only of the great council. The King, who was in 
1 Sir Harris Nicolas, usually so accurate, makes Margaret Neville the mother 
of the three daughters. 
