e barons,
sought merely to gather up within a reasonably brief document those
principles and customs which the better kings of England had been wont
to observe, but which in the evil days of Richard and John had been
persistently evaded. There was no thought of a new form of government,
or of a new code of laws, but rather of the redress of present and
practical grievances. Not a new constitution, but good government in
conformity with the old one, was the essential object. Naturally
enough, therefore, the instrument was based, in most of its important
provisions, upon the charter granted by Henry I. in 1100, even as that
instrument was based, in the main, upon the righteous laws of Edward
the Confessor. After like manner, the Charter of 1215 became, in its
turn, the foundation to which reassertions of constitutional liberty
in subsequent times were apt to return; and, under greater or lesser
pressure, the Charter itself was "confirmed" by numerous sovereigns
who proved themselves none too much disposed to observe its
principles.

In effect the Charter was a treaty between the king and his dissatisfied
subjects. It was essentially a feudal document, and the majority of
its provisions relate primarily to the privileges and rights of the
barons. None the less, it contains clauses that affected all classes
of society, and it is especially noteworthy that the barons and clergy
pledged themselves in it to extend to their dependents the same
customs and liberties which they were themselves demanding of the
crown. Taking the Charter as a whole, it guaranteed the freedom of
the Church, defined afresh and in precise terms surviving feudal (p. 010)
incidents and customs, placed safeguards about the liberties of the
boroughs, pledged security of property and of trade, and stipulated
important regulations respecting government and law, notably that
whenever the king should propose the assessment of scutages or of
unusual aids he should take the advice of the General Council,
composed of the tenants-in-chief summoned individually in the case of
the greater ones and through the sheriffs in the case of those of
lesser importance. Certain general clauses, e.g., that pledging that
justice should neither be bought nor sold, and that prescribing that a
freeman might not be imprisoned, outlawed, or dispossessed of his
property save by the judgment of his peers or by the law of the land,
meant in effect considerably less than they someti