of the Army of God and Holy Church." The king, gnawing his fingers in a frenzy of rage and fear, then issued a proclamation to his subjects in these words: "Know that we have conceded to our Barons who are against us that we shall not take or disseise them or their men, nor go against them per vim vel per arma, unless by the law of our land, or by the judgment of their peers in curia nostra, until consideration shall have been made by four whom we shall choose on their part, and the lord Pope who shall be oversman over them." But even if John's intentions were now honest, which nobody believed, it was too late for conciliation. Neither the Pope nor the moderate counsels of Archbishop Langton, and William the Marshal, could save the king now from humiliation at the hands of the "Army of God and Holy Church." The barons were backed by the bishops almost to a man; only one ecclesiastic, the foreigner Peter des Roches, who held the office of Chief Justiciar at the moment, heartily and unreservedly supported the king; while one or two like William de Gray, Bishop of Norwich, who was the king's nominee for the See of Canterbury in opposition to Langton, and Benedict, Bishop of Rochester, stood aside from the conflict. When the City of London, to the citizens of which John had just thrown the sop of a free charter authorizing them to elect their own Mayor annually, went over to the side of the insurgents, and opened its gates to them on the 17th May, the king recognized that the issue was lost; and on the 8th June he sent the Marshal and other envoys, including no doubt Hubert de Burgh, to the barons with the message that he would freely accede to the laws and liberties which they demanded, if they would appoint a time and place of meeting for that purpose. The Barons answered that the place should be the meadow of Runnymede, and the time the 15th day of June. On the arrival of that eventful day, which was a Monday, history assures us that the king assented to the demands of the barons; but the researches of such specialists as Miss Norgate have revealed the fact that the complete and final Charter as handed down to posterity was not sealed on that day. John's headquarters were at Windsor from Monday, 15th June, to the afternoon of Tuesday, the 23rd, and it is on record that he visited Runnymede for the purpose of conferring with the barons almost daily during that week. The Charter comes down to us in the form of

four original sealed copies all elaborately engrossed. It is a technically worded and lengthy document. Much appears in the final document that is lacking in the "Articles of the Barons submitted to John's emissaries two months before; for instance the clause declaring the freedom of the national Church, "Quod Anglicana ecclesia libera sit," &c., does not appear at all in the former document, but occurs twice in the Charter. There are also found in the final document certain provisions in favour of the Crown, which do not appear in any earlier document. And again, the Charter as it comes down to us is manifestly, both in substance and form, a document that by no manner of means could have been prepared by the barons, or under their sole guidance. In the face of all these facts I am disposed to accept the view recently put forward in opposition to the theory of older writers that the Great Charter was not finally settled on the 15th June, the date which it bears, but that it was built up out of the "Articles of the Barons" and such other provisions as that great churchman and statesman Archbishop Langton, assisted by Hubert de Burgh and the other ministers of the Crown mentioned in the preamble, succeeded in securing during the series of conferences which took place between the king and the Barons in that epoch-making week. There is also a piece of documentary evidence extant which makes the correctness of this modern view more than probable, i.e., a letter written by John to William of Cantelupe, one of his military officers, instructing him not to enforce payment of any balances of "tenseries" demanded since the preceding Friday, "on which day peace was made between the King and his Barons." It is reasonable, therefore, to conclude that the final instrument was not completed between the parties until the Friday following Monday, the 15th June, and that the King's seal was not adhibited to each of the four originals until the 19th June, 1215. I have not aimlessly laboured this seemingly insignificant point. To my mind it is necessary to know the res gestae of the Great Charter in order to have a clear understanding of what it means. The long period of conference cheek by jowl takes. away that element of the marvellous which surrounds the Charter when we look upon it as being handed to John by the barons in its integrity and forthwith sealed (not signed as some writers carelessly say) by him in the early hours of the first day of the so-called "Parliament of Runnymede."

To do that is to treat it as the Jews did their Decalogue and the Romans their Code of the Twelve Tables, namely, as a miraculous creation. Wonderful as it is in its comprehension of civil order for the realm and the practical administration of justice between man and man, its only inspiration was the breath of Saxon democracy in England, which Norman feudalism had failed to dissipate, and the patriotism and political genius of such men (English men) as Archbishop Langton and Hubert de Burgh. But that is inspiration enough to justify Lord Chatham in declaring that it forms, together with the Petition of Right and the Bill of Rights, the "Bible of the English Constitution." "With all its faults," says a more recent eulogium, this document becomes a sacred text, the nearest approach to an irrepealable fundamental statute' that England has. In age after age [of the subsequent history of England] a confirmation of it will be demanded and granted as a remedy for those oppressions from which the realm is suffering, and this when some of its clauses, at least in their original meaning, have become hopelessly antiquated. For in brief it means this, that the King is and shall be below the law."

Surely there is no better claim to statesmanship than to have assisted in fashioning the corner-stone of the political temple of the English nation; surely there is no more genuine demand upon the esteem of the citizens of the Colonial empire of the twentieth century who share in the benefactions of that achievement. Hubert de Burgh did this, and he did more. His was the persuasive voice that secured John's consent to the Charter. This is the testimony of Lord Chancellor Campbell to Hubert's connection with the Great Charter. "In the controversies which arose between John and the barons, Hubert remained faithful to his master, but gave him good advice, and tried to instil into him some regard for truth and plighted faith. Being present with him at Runnymede, he prevailed upon him to sign (sic) the Great Charter, and he afterwards sincerely lamented the violation of its provisions."

To meditate this great event is to recognize that political history is as full of surprises and contradictions as the little annals of our own lives. There is no more striking exhibition of the irony of fate than that which is presented at Runnymede, where the feudal barons, most of them of

Norman birth, assert the old Saxon right to chasten the king for misgovernment, and compel his assent to a code of laws the essence of which, howsoever contrariwise the letter, was destined to act as an erosive acid upon the rocky walls of feudalism. Magna Charta thus symbolizes a civil conquest by the Anglo-Saxons of their quondam military conquerors from Normandy. It is a return to that primitive Tuetonic democracy of which we read in Tacitus. Thenceforth the country is governed by the common accord and the common political ideas of the unified races. As the grammar of our English speech is Anglo-Saxon, so is the law of our Constitution. There is no sign of cleavage between Saxon and Norman in the terms of the Charter, and the son of John Lackland, Henry III., published a royal proclamation in a tongue which is more akin to modern English than it was to medieval French. By the time of Edward III., in the succeeding century, England had forgot her French entirely in every-day life; and when two centuries and a half later the descendants of the "freemen of Runnymede" began to plant colonies in America, they looked upon their rival adventurers from St. Malo and La Rochelle as if they had been aliens to them since the days of the Deluge. For a century and a half more aliens and enemies to each other the races remained, when a New-World period of fusion began after the fall of Quebec; and so much nationbuilding as the succeeding period has witnessed in North America is directly due to the momentous events of the thirteenth century which I have here passed in review. The first draft of the American Declaration of Independence was written at Runnymede; and there, too, was foreshadowed the colonial autonomy of the present day. As the three historic creeds have stood for centuries as the symbols of Catholic orthodoxy, so do Magna Charta, the Petition of Right and the Bill of Rights stand as touchstones of the political faith of the whole British people.

Ottawa.

CHARLES MORSE.

(To be continued.)

VOL. XXVIII. C. L.T. R.-40

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE ADMINISTRATION OF LAW IN ENGLAND.

(Continued from July Number.)

Criminal Procelure. If the conservatism of the English has been manifested in regard to civil procedure it has been still more so in the procedure in criminal cases.

But this vis inertia which so long impeded the wheels of reform was in the last century at last overcome to a large extent, and from being one of the most savage and brutal systems of law in force, it was gradually, through the exertion of Bentham and Romilly, shorn to a large extent of these obnoxious features, and tempered with a mercy and consideration for the accused altogether unknown to our forefathers.

In speaking of civil procedure we have dwelt at some length on the importance for centuries attached to the appearance of the defendant and his submission to the jurisdiction of the Court, and have suggested that this had its origin in the criminal procedure, because many civil proceedings had a quasi-criminal character; trespasses and taking of cattle were common grounds of action and they involved generally, either actually or theoretically, a breach of the peace of our Lord the King-and what we now regard as purely civil actions were prosecuted to some extent as if the wrong complained of were a crime and not merely a civil wrong.

In strictly criminal proceedings, however, not only was the accused person required to appear in person, but he was required to plead, before the wheels of justice could proceed with the investigation of the case. Obstinately and without reasonable cause to stand mute, was itself a high contempt of Court, and for ages punishable by a process which was remarkable for its brutality. The mute offender was subjected to the punishment of what was called peine forte et dure-which consisted of his being laid upon his back and heavy weights being placed upon his body as much as he could bear and more, and if he required any refreshment during this torment, stale bread and dirty water were all he was to be allowed to have, and he was not to be allowed to