Page:A History and Defence of Magna Charta.djvu/168

122 indeed have had all King ’s latter grievances redreſſed, aid yet have periſhed under the weight of ſuch as were in his brother ’s reign. After has reckoned up ſeveral intolerable exactions and grievances in that reign, he has theſe words. “And with theſe vexations (ſaith ) all England, from ſea to ſea, was reduced to extreme poverty; and yet it ended not here: another torment is added to the confuſion of the ſubjects by the juſtices of the foreſts, who not only execute thoſe hideous laws introduced by the Norman, but impoſe others of more tyrannical ſeverity, as the memory thereof being odious, deſerves to be utterly forgotten: having afterward by the hard labour of our noble anceſtors, and the goodneſs of more regular princes, been aſwaged, and now out of uſe.” This deceitful remedy of the pope’s therefore would have undone the barons, for ſuch a partial information of abuſes would have eſtabliſhed all the reſt; according to that known maxim, Exceptio firmat regulam in caſibus non exceptis.

return to King ’s oath; neither did he keep that branch of it which relates to the adminiſtration of true and upright juſtice: unleſs you will