Page:A History and Defence of Magna Charta.djvu/81

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
MAGNA CHARTA.
35

newed again by freſh oaths, and that even of the pope’s legate.

I shall very briefly ſhew what fate it had in the reign of Henry III. for I do not remember any fighting about the confirmation of it in any ſucceeding reign; wherein I ſhall only recite the matter of fact, reſerving the matter of right till afterwards.

In the fifth year of his reign he was crowned again at Weſtminſter, and three years after, which was the eighteenth of his age, at a parliament at London, he was deſired by the archbiſhop and the other lords to confirm the liberties and free cuſtoms for which the war was firſt moved againſt his father. And, as the archbiſhop evidently ſhewed, the King could not decline the doing of it; becauſe, upon the departure of Lewis out of England, he himſelf had ſworn, and all the nobility of the realm with him, that they would obſerve all the ſaid liberties, and have all others obſerve them. Upon which, William Brewer, who was one of the privy council made anſwer in behalf of the King, ſaying, “The liberties you deſire ought not in juſtice to be obſerved, becauſe they were extorted by violence.” Which ſpeech

the