Page:A History and Defence of Magna Charta.djvu/108

62, though he had unblameably adminiſtered his office, and was a ſingular pillar of truth in the court. But the chancellor refuſed it, ſaying, “That having received the ſeal by the common council of the realm, he could not reſign it to any one without the like common aſſent.”

miſeries of the kingdom ſtill go on, and no other can be expected from ſuch a property of a prince, who ſet his ſeal to deſtroy his beſt ſubjects blindfold, and ſay his wicked counſellors compelled him to it; and after he himſelf has impeached them, and publickly blackened them with his own mouth, “and threatened to have their eyes pulled out,” takes them again into his boſom. And therefore in all the ſucceeding parliaments we meet with nothing but their repeated complaints of the violations of Magna Charta, and their ineffectual endeavours to redreſs them; feigned humiliations and ſorrow on the King’s fide, with promiſes of amendment, but no performance; aſking for money, and then being upbraided with what he had got already, and that at ſeveral times he had wafted eight hundred thouſand pounds, ſince he began to be a dilapidator and conſumer of the kingdom: they gave him money once for all, and he gives them a charter never to injure them any more in that kind,