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25. The Charter appears Rot. Chart., p. 207. Cf. under chapter 13 infra, where the rights of the Londoners are discussed.

26. The writ is given in Rot. Pat., 1. 141, and also in New Rymer, I. 128.

27. For writ, see Rot. Claus., 204.

28. Some authorities give 24th May as the date. It must have been the 17th; since New Rymer, p. 121, under the date of 18th May, prints a writ of John, informing Rowland Blaot of the surrender of London to the barons. This was followed on 20th May (N.R., p. 121) by another royal writ, ordering all bailiffs and other faithful, to molest the Londoners in every way possible.

29. III. 301.

30. Const. Hist., I. 581-3.

31. The individual names may be read in Stubbs, Ibid.; and readers in search of biographical knowledge are referred to Bémont, Chartes, 39–40, and for fuller, though less reliable information, to Thomson, Magna Charta, 270–322.

32. See Appendix.

33. See supra, p. 40.

34. So far there can be no doubt. Either on the Close Rolls or on the Patent Rolls (q.v.) copies of one or more writs are preserved dated from Windsor on each of these days, and also one or more dated from Runnymede on 15th, 18th, 19th, 20th, 21st, 22nd, and 23rd June.

35. R. Wendover, III. 298.

36. In the British Museum. See infra under Part V.

37. Cf. Blackstone, Great Charter, xvii.: "subjoined in a more hasty hand, ... as if added at the instance of the King’s commissioners upon more mature deliberation."

38. See infra under that chapter.

39. Great Charter, p. xxiv.

40. See Protest of Archbishops infra, p. 52.

41. Mr. Round explains this word in a learned appendix (Geoffrey de Mandeville, p. 414) to mean “blackmail,” i.e. “money extorted under pretence of protection or defence.”

42. See Rot. Claus., p. 225 (17 John membrane 31). The evidence of this writ does not stand alone. In another writ on the same membrane of the Close Rolls, dated 19th June, John informs his half-brother, the Earl of Salisbury, that he has concluded peace, and instructs him to restore certain lands and castles immediately, as this had been made a condition of peace. See also the writ to Stephen Harengod infra, p. 49.

43. Blackstone, however (Great Charter, xv.), speaks of a “conference which lasted for several days, and did not come to a conclusion till Friday, the 19th June.”

44. Miss Norgate, John Lackland, p. 234, acquiesces in the view generally received, fixing Monday as the day on which the final concord was arrived at, but she relies for evidence on a more than doubtful interpretation of what is undoubtedly an error in the copy of a writ by King John appearing on the Patent Rolls. This writ, which as copied in the Rolls bears to be dated 18th June (erroneously as will immediately be shown), is addressed to Stephen Harengod (in terms closely resembling those of the writ already cited from the Close Rolls addressed to William of Cantilupe), announcing inter alia that terms of peace had been agreed upon “last Friday.” Miss Norgate contends with reason that there must be a mistake somewhere, since on the Friday preceding the 18th, negotiations had not even begun. She is confident that "the ‘die Veneris’ which occurs three times in the writ is in each case an unquestionable, though unaccountable, error for ‘die Lunae.’" Yet, it is unlikely that a scribe writing three days after so momentous an event could have mistaken the day of the week. It is infinitely more probable that in writing xxiij. he formed the second “x” so carelessly that it was mistaken by the enrolling clerk for a “v.” The correct date is thus the 23rd, and the reference is to Friday the 19th. This presumption becomes a certainty by comparison with the words of the writ to William of Cantilupe, dated the 21st (of the existence of which Miss Norgate was probably not aware).

45. Blackstone, Great Charter, xviii., has given a careful analysis of the points of difference.

46. E.g. chapters 48 and 52. For alterations directed against the trading classes, see chapters 12, 13, 35, and 41 infra.

47. Miss Norgate, John Lackland, 233, takes a different view, holding that the influence of Stephen Langton dates from an earlier period. The original articles “are obviously not the composition of the barons mustered under Robert Fitz-Walter,” who could never have risen to “the lofty conception embodied in the Charter—the conception of a contract between King and people which should secure equal rights to every class and every individual in the nation.” The correctness of this estimate is discussed infra.

48. No specimen of these Letters Testimonial is known to exist, but a copy is preserved on folio 234 of the Red Book of the Exchequer. See Appendix.

49. See Rot. Pat., I. 180, and Select Charters, 306–7.

50. New Rymer, I. 133. See Appendix. It is undated, but must be later than the letters to sheriffs concerning election of twelve knights, to which it alludes.

51. Rot. Pat., p. 181. As we have to depend for our knowledge of this important protest on one copy, engrossed on the back of a membrane of an official roll (No. 18 of John’s 17th year), it is possible to doubt its genuineness; but it is unlikely to be purely a forgery.

52. See Rot. Pat. and New Rymer, I. 134.

53. See R. Wendover, III. 302-318.

54. Great Charter, p. xxi.

55. Chron. Maj., II. 605-6.

56. Stubbs, Const. Hist., II. 3.

57. The original bull with the seal of Innocent still attached is preserved in the British Museum (Cotton, Cleopatra E 1), and is carefully printed by Bémont, Chartes des Libertés Anglaises, p. 41. It may also be read inter alia in Rymer and in Blackstone.

58. The text is given by Rymer.

59. See Rymer, and Bémont, Chartes, xxv.