Page:A History and Defence of Magna Charta.djvu/169

Rh will allow the deſtroying of a brave baron,, and the famiſhing of his wife and two ſons in Windſor Caſtle, for a raſh word of her’s; and the putting the archdeacon of Norwich into a ſheet of lead, and ſeveral ſuch barbarities, to be choice and eminent inſtances of it. So that when the pope charges the barons with the breach of their oath of fidelity to King, it is unknown to me that they owed him any; which King himſelf ſeemed to miſtruſt, when after the barons demand of their liberties, he uſed that fruitleſs precaution of cauſing his whole kingdom to ſwear fidelity to him, and renew their homages. For what ſignified this ſwearing to him never ſo often, while he himſelf was breaking the original contract, and rendering all their fidelities meer nullities, by deſtroying the foundation of them, and the only conſideration upon which they were made? It is, as ſays, “A covenant is a knot, you need not looſe both ends of it, but untying one end you unty both.” And ſuch is the mutual bond of ligeance betwixt King and people, it is conditional and reciprocal: and therefore it was impoſſible for King ’s ſubjects to be bound while he was looſe. That the fidelity of King’s and ſubjects to each other is mutual, conditional, ,