Page:A History and Defence of Magna Charta.djvu/178

132, is no friendly part. Muſt they then aid him againſt the realm, and be the inſtruments of his unjuſt oppreſſion upon themſelves? Their duty and ſervice was to the realm in chief, to him it was ſubaltern: and therefore, knowing their duty better than the pope did, they all left K. but ſeven, before he would conſent to the parliament at Running-Mead. For it is plain the pope would have had them paſſive-obedient knights, and a contradiction to their very order, whereby for certain they had forfeited their ſpurs.

“, but the barons were judges and executors in their own cauſe.” And who can help it, if they were made ſo in the firſt inſtitution, and from the very foundation of this government? As ſoon as the Saxons had choſen from among themſelves one King, this the Mirror ſays expreſsly, was the juriſdiction of the King’s companions. For though the King had no peer, yet if he wronged any of his people, it was not fit that he that was party ſhould be likewiſe judge, nor for the ſame reaſon, any of his commiſſioners: and therefore