s: they were
received without opposition into that capital: and finding now the great
superiority of their force, they issued proclamations, requiring the
other barons to join them, and menacing them, in case of refusal or
delay, with committing devastation on their houses and estates.[***] In
order to show what might be expected from their prosperous arms,
they made incursions from London, and laid waste the king's parks and
palaces; and all the barons, who had hitherto carried the semblance
of supporting the royal party, were glad of this pretence for openly
joining a cause which they always had secretly favored. The king was
left at Odiham, in Hampshire, with a poor retinue of only seven knights;
and after trying several expedients to elude the blow, after offering to
refer all differences to the pope alone, or to eight barons, four to be
chosen by himself, and four by the confederates,[****] he found himself
at last obliged to submit at discretion.

[* M. Paris, p. 176.]

[** M. Paris, p. 177.]

[*** M. Paris, p. 177. ]

[**** Rymer, vol. i. p. 200.]

A conference between the king and the barons was appointed at Runnemede,
between Windsor and Staines; a place which has ever since been extremely
celebrated on account of this great event. The two parties encamped
apart, like open enemies; and after a debate of a few days, the king,
with a facility somewhat suspicious, signed and sealed the charter
which was required of him. This famous deed, commonly called the
_Great Charter_, either granted or secured very important liberties and
privileges to every order of men in the kingdom; to the clergy, to the
barons, and to the people.

The freedom of elections was secured to the clergy: the former charter
of the king was confirmed, by which the necessity of a royal conge
d'elire and confirmation was superseded: all check upon appeals to Rome
was removed, by the allowance granted every man to depart the kingdom
at pleasure: and the fines to be imposed on the clergy, for any offence,
were ordained to be proportional to their lay estates, not to their
ecclesiastical benefices.

The privileges granted to the barons were either abatements in the rigor
of the feudal law, or determinations in points which had been left
by that law, or had become, by practice, arbitrary and ambiguous. The
reliefs of heirs succeeding to a military fee were ascertained;
an earl's and baron's at a hundred marks, a knight's