380 A. D. 1215. 



other goods, without payment, nor feize his carts and horfes, nor cut 

 down his wood, without his confent, 



§ 3;^) AH kidels (engines for catching fifli) fliall be removed from the 

 Thames, the Medway, and other rivers*. 



§ 35) There fhall be one uniform ftandard for weights, meafures, and 

 manufactures. That for corn flrall be the London quarter. 



§ 39) N^ freeman fhall be feized, impriloned, or outlawed, except by 

 the legal judgement of his peers, or by the law of the land. 



§ 40) The king fhall not fell, deny, or delay, juflice to any perfon. 



§ 41) Ail merchants fhall have fafety and fecurity in coming to, or 

 going out of, England, and in remaining and traveling through it by 

 land or water for buying or felling, free from aijy grievous impofitions f, 

 and agreeable to the old and upright cuftoms ; except in time of war, 

 and except merchants belonging to a country at war with us, who, at 

 the commencement of a war, iliall be attached without any injury to 

 their perfons or property, till it be made known to us, or our chief 

 jufliciary, how the merchants of our dominions, who happen to be in 

 the country at war with us, are treated there : and if our merchants are 

 not injured there, they fhall not be injured here. 



§ 42) It fliall be lawful for all perfons, except prifoners, outlaws, and 

 foreign merchants as above excepted in time of war, to go out of the 

 kingdom freely and fecurely, and to return J. 



§ 60) All the liberties, hereby granted to the king's vaflals, fliall alfo 

 be granted by the clergy and barons to their vaflals §. 



The other articles of the charter belong to general hiftory, law, and 

 politics. By the concejjiojis in it we may forni an idea of the previous 

 (late of a fociety, where fuch conceflions could be required, or would 

 be accepted. 



Almofl immediately after he had figned the Great charter, John pro- 

 cured, from his liege lord, the pope, two bulls annulling it, and excom- 

 municating thofe who had by force extorted it. The confequence was 

 a new war between the king and the barons, who were driven to the 

 defperate refourfe of inviting the French king's fon to come to their 

 afliltance, and be their fovereign. Louis accepted the offer, and landed 

 without oppofition at Sandwich with fix hundred fliips. Very fortun- 



* From § 38 of the Magna cl-arla of liis fon + The chief iiiU'iU of this article vva"-. to allow 



Henry III, in the ytav 1216, it appear-:, that John tli^ clergy to atteiul their fovereign, the pope, 



had feized into liis own Imiids many of the rivers ; without afkiug the king's pcrmiflion. 

 no doubt thofe which afforded the greated and § Tlii'i is almoil the 'only article in the Ma;jna 



mod profitable fidierics. Richard's order againll charta, iti which the great body of the people had 



kidels in the year 1 196 muft already have been i;ny general concern; and the benefit of it was 



ncgleiicd. probably never claimed by theni. The king's ob- 



f ' Sine omnibus nialis loltls.' Toliis feems je£l in infcrting it (for it wan added by him) was 



erroneoufly written for toWis, and accordingly the apparently to iiave a pretext from the breach of 



old Englilh tranllation has evill t)lls. Knyghton ir to annull the whole of ths charter. 

 [col. 25*3] writes mallf tolls. 



