en considered as of equal importance with Magna
Charta itself, establishing them in all points as the law of the land;
but it did more. "Hitherto the king's prerogative of levying money by
name of _tallage_ or _prise_, from his towns and tenants in
demesne, had passed unquestioned. Some impositions, that especially on
the export of wool, affected all the king's subjects. It was now the
moment to enfranchise the people and give that security to private
property which Magna Charta had given to personal liberty." Edward's
statute binds the king never to take any of these "aids, tasks, and
prises" in future, save by the common assent of the realm. Hence, as
Bowen remarks, the Confirmation of the Charters, or an abstract of it
under the form of a supposed statute _de tallagio non concedendo_
(see Stubbs, p. 487), was more frequently cited than any other enactment
by the parliamentary leaders who resisted the encroachments of Charles I.
The original of the _Confirmatio Chartarum_, which is in Norman French,
is still in existence, though considerably shriveled by the fire which
damaged so many of the Cottonian manuscripts in 1731.

THE GRANT OF THE GREAT CHARTER.

An island in the Thames between Staines and Windsor had been chosen as
the place of conference: the King encamped on one bank, while the
barons--covered the marshy flat, still known by the name of Runnymede,
on the other. Their delegates met in the island between them, but the
negotiations were a mere cloak to cover John's purpose of unconditional
submission. The Great Charter was discussed, agreed to, and signed in a
single day. One copy of it still remains in the British Museum, injured
by age and fire, but with the royal seal still hanging from the brown,
shrivelled parchment. It is impossible to gaze without reverence on the
earliest monument of English freedom which we can see with our own eyes
and touch with our own hands, the great Charter to which from age to age
patriots have looked back as the basis of English liberty. But in itself
the Charter was no novelty, nor did it claim to establish any new
constitutional principles. The Charter of Henry the First formed the
basis of the whole, and the additions to it are for the most part formal
recognitions of the judicial and administrative changes introduced by
Henry the Second. But the vague expressions of the older charters were
now exchanged for precise and elaborate provisions. The bonds of
unwritten custo