to security of person and property, to good government.  ‘No freeman,’ ran the memorable article that lies at the base of our whole judicial system, ’shall be seized or imprisoned, or dispossessed, or outlawed, or in any way brought to ruin; we will not go against any man nor send against him, save by legal judgment of his peers or by the law of the land.’  ‘To no man will we sell,’ runs another, ‘or deny, or delay, right or justice.’  The great reforms of the past reigns were now formally recognized; judges of assize were to hold their circuits four times in the year, and the Court of Common Pleas was no longer to follow the King in his wanderings over the realm, but to sit in a fixed place.  But the denial of justice under John was a small danger compared with the lawless exactions both of himself and his predecessor.  Richard had increased the amount of the scutage which Henry II. had introduced, and applied it to raise funds for his ransom.  He had restored the Danegeld, or land tax, so often abolished, under the new name of ‘carucage,’ had seized the wool of the Cistercians and the plate of the churches, and rated movables as well as land.  John had again raised the rate of scutage, and imposed aids, fines, and ransoms at his pleasure without counsel of the baronage.  The Great Charter met this abuse by the provision on which our constitutional system rests.  With the exception of the three customary feudal aids which still remained to the crown, ’no scutage or aid shall be imposed in our realm save by the Common Council of the realm;’ and to this Great Council it was provided that prelates and the greater barons should be summoned by special writ, and all tenants in chief through the sheriffs and bailiffs, at least forty days before.  But it was less easy to provide means for the control of a King whom no man could trust, and a council of twenty-four barons was chosen from the general body of their order to enforce on John the observance of the Charter, with the right of declaring war on the King should its provisions be infringed.  Finally, the Charter was published throughout the whole country, and sworn to at every hundred-mote and town-mote by order from the King.—­Green’s Short History of the English People, p. 123.

* * * * *

APPENDIX D.

A PART OF THE BILL OF RIGHTS.

AN ACT FOR DECLARING THE RIGHTS AND LIBERTIES OF THE SUBJECT, AND SETTLING THE SUCCESSION OF THE CROWN. 1689.

Whereas the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, assembled at Westminster, lawfully, fully, and freely representing all the estates of the people of this realm, did upon the thirteenth day of February, in the year of our Lord one thousand six hundred eighty-eight [o.s.],[44] present unto their Majesties, then called and known by the names and style of William and Mary, Prince and Princess of Orange, being present in their proper persons, a certain Declaration in writing, made by the said Lords and Commons, in the words following, viz.: