MAGNA CIIARTA. The terms of the compact between the feudal chief and his dependants underwent frequent changes in the middle ages, the consequence for the most part:, of resistance made by the teuaota, and struggles to regain liberties which had been originally surrendered or taken from them by the force and power of the chief. When a material alteration was made in the terms of the compact, a record was made of it in writing. These records are called charters, in the restricted ueo of a term which is popularly applied to almost every species of early diplomas. The tenants of the various honours, or great tenancies in capite, are seldom without one or more charters which have been granted to them by their lords, by which exemptions or privileges are given, base services are commuted for payments in money, and the mode is settled in which justice shall be administered among them. And even in some of the inferior manors there are charters of a similar kind by which certain liberties are guaranteed by the lord to his tenants. These charters run in the form of letters, " Omnibus," &c., from the person granting ; they set forth the thing granted, and end with the names of persons who were present when the lord's seal was affixed, often ten, twelve, or moro, with the date of place and time of the grant.
Such a charter is that called the Magna Charta granted by King John, but acting in his twofold character of the lord of a body of feudlitoriat, and the sovereign of the realm. This charter is often regarded as the constitutional basis of English liberties, but in many of its provisions it seems to have been only a declaration of rights which had been enjoyed in England before the Conquest, and which are said to have been granted by King Henry I. on his accession. However, if it did not properly found the liberties which the English nation enjoys, or if it were not the original of those privileges and franchises which the barons (or the chief tenants of the crown, for the names are hero equivalent), ecclesiastical persons, citizens, burgesses, and merchants, enjoy, it recalled into existence, it defined, it settled them, it formed in its written state a document to which appeal might be made, under whose protection any person who had any interest in it might find shelter, and which served, as if it were a portion of the common law of the land, to guide the judges to the decisions they pronounced in all questions between the king and any portion of the people.
Beside the great charter there was granted at the same time a charter relating to the forests only. There were very extensive tracts of land in England which were actually forests,uncultivated, and reserved for the pleasure of the king ; and there were purlieus to these forests, all of which were subject to a peculiar system of law, many parts of which were felt to be oppressive, and from some of which this charter exempted the people.
The independence and rights of the church were also secured by the great charter.
Magna Charta has heen printed in a great variety of forms ; there are facsimiles of a copy of it which was made at the time, and still exists in the British Museum, and of another preserved at Lincoln, and trans lations of it into the English language. It is thus so easily accessible, that it will not be expected that we shall give a copy of it, or even a complete abstract of its multifarious provisions, some of which are completely obsolete, and the terms obscure.
Such a concession from the king was not gained without a violent struggle ' • in fact he was compelled to yield it by an armed force, con sisting of very large portion of the baronage, which he was far too feeble to resist with effect. The names of the chiefs are preserved by the chroniclers of the time, and in the charter itself ; and whenever recited, they call up to this day a mingled feeling of respect and gratitude. the respect and gratitude which men pay to those who have obtained for them the extension of political privileges, though it may appear that those privileges were nothing more than rights of which they had been deprived, and to which therefore they may be said to have been justly entitled. They appear the patriots of a rude age, and the mists of dis tance and antiquity obscure to us the selfishness and the other evils (if such existed) which were manifested in the contest. The first name is that of Robert Fitz-Walter, who belonged to the great family of Clare. The title given to him as head of the host was Marshal of the Army of God and of the Holy Church. Next to him come Eustace de Vesci, Richard de Percy, Robert de Roos, Peter de Brus, Nicholas de Stute vile, Saier de Quenci, earl of Winchester, the earls of Clare, Essex, and Norfolk, William de Mowbray, Robert de Vere, Fulk Fitz Warine, William de Montacute, William de Beauchamp, and many others of families long after famous in English history, the progenitors of the ancient baronial houses of England.
The charter was signed, or rather sealed, not in any house, but in the open field, at a place called Runnymede, between Windsor and Staines ; but it was not merely by an accidental meeting of two armies at that place that this act was done there, for it appears by Matthew of Westminster that Runnymede was a place where treaties concerning the peace of the kingdom had been often made. All was done with great solemnity. The memorable day was June 5, 1215.
What was unwillingly granted, it could scarcely be expected would be religiously observed. John himself would gladly have infringed or broken it, as would his son King Henry III., but the barous were watchful of their own privileges, those of the church, the cities, the boroughs, and of the people at large ; and King Henry was led to make one or more solemn ratifications of the charter. To keep the rights thus guaranteed fully in the eyes of the people a copy was sent to every cathedral church, and read publicly twice a year.
See the work of Sir William Blackstone, entitled The Great Charter and Charter of the Forest (on Public Wrongs), with other authentic Instruments ; to which is prefixed an Introductory Discourse concern ing the History of the Charters.' Oxford, 1759, 4to. He wrote also an express treatise on this charter. An exact facsimile has been engraved and published of the charter, from a copy preserved in the archives of the cathedral church of Lincoln, with other of the greater charters. In the first volume of 'The Statutes of the Realm, pub lished by the Board of Commissioners on the Public Records, these charters are all printed, with English translations of them.