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of land, the national militia had not been involved in feudal meshes: the obligation of service remained still personal, not territorial. In 1205 John, fearing an invasion of the Kingdom, called to arms all the militia sworn and equipped under the Assize, _i.e._, all the freemen of the realm. Short-shrift was to be given to any who disobeyed the summons: "_Qui vero ad summonitionem non venerit habeatur pro capitali inimico domini regis et regni_" (He who does not come in response to the summons shall be regarded as a capital enemy of the king and kingdom.) The penalty was to be the peculiarly appropriate one of reduction to perpetual servitude. The disobedient and disloyal subject who made the great refusal would _ipso facto_ divest himself of the distinguishing mark of his freedom.[10] Henry III in 1223 and 1231 made similar levies. In 1252, in a notable writ for enforcing Watch and Ward and the Assize of Arms, he extended the obligation of service to villans and lowered the age limit to fifteen. Edward I reaffirmed these new departures in his well-known Statute of Winchester (1285), in which it is enacted that "every man have in his house harness for to keep the peace after the ancient assize, that is to say, every man between fifteen years of age and sixty years." Further, he enlarged the armoury of the militiaman by including among his weapons the axe and the bow.[11] The long, aggressive wars of Edward I in Wales and Scotland, and the still longer struggles of the fourteenth century in France, could not, of course, be waged by means of the national militia. Even the feudal levy was unsuited to their requirements. They were waged mainly by means of hired professional armies. Parliament--a new factor in the Constitution--took pains in these circumstances to limit by statute the liabilities of the old national forces. An Act of 1328 decreed that no one should be compelled to go beyond the bounds of his own county, except when necessity or a sudden irruption of foreign foes into the realm required it.[12] Another Act, 1352, provided that the militia should not be compelled to go beyond the realm in any circumstances whatsoever without the consent of Parliament.[13] Both these Acts were confirmed by Henry IV in 1402.[14] But the old obligation of universal service for home defence remained intact. It was, in fact, enforced by Edward IV in 1464, when, on his own authority, he ordered the Sheriffs to proclaim that "
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