r was in the main a renewal of the old rights and
liberties promised by Henry I. It set up no new rights, conferred no new
privileges, and sanctioned no changes in the Constitution. Its real and
lasting importance is due to its being a written document--for the first
time in England it was down in black and white, for all to read, what the
several rights and duties of King and people were, and in what the chief
points of the Constitution consisted.

[Illustration: MAGNA CHARTA

A facsimile of the Original in the British Museum.]

The Great Charter is a great table of laws. It marks the beginning of
written legislation, and anticipates Acts of Parliament. Unwritten laws and
traditions were not abolished: they remain with us to this day; but the
written law had become a necessity when "the bonds of unwritten custom"
failed to restrain kings and barons. The Great Charter also took into
account the rights of free men, and of the tenants of the King's vassals.
If the barons and knights had their grievances to be redressed, the commons
and the freeholding peasants needed protection against the lawless
exactions of their overlords.[12]

Sixty-three clauses make up Magna Charta, and we may summarise them as
follows:--

(1) The full rights and liberties of the Church are acknowledged; bishops
shall be freely elected, so that the Church of England shall be free.[13]

(2-8) The King's tenants are to have their feudal rights secured against
abuse. Widows--in the wardship of the Crown--are to be protected against
robbery and against compulsion to a second marriage.

(9-11) The harsh rules for securing the payment of debts to the Crown and
to the Jews (in whose debts the Crown had an interest) are to be relaxed.

(12-14) No scutage or aid (save for the three regular feudal aids--the
ransom of the King, the knighting of his eldest son, and the marriage of
his eldest daughter) is to be imposed except by the Common Council of the
nation; and to this Council archbishops, bishops, abbots, earls, and
greater barons are to be called by special writ, while all who held their
land directly from the King, and were of lesser rank, were to be summoned
by a general writ addressed to the sheriff of the county. Forty days'
notice of the meeting was to be given, and also the cause of the assembly.
The action of those who obeyed the summons was to be taken to represent the
action of all.[14] (This last clause is never repeated in later
confir