Page:A History and Defence of Magna Charta.djvu/53

Rh “lives.” The archbiſhop, for his part, promiſed them his moſt faithful aid and aſſiſtance to the utmoſt of his power, and after this aſſociation was thus entered into, the parliament broke up.

had paſſed but one hundred and thirteen years ſince the grant of the firſt’s charter: and, though there were then made as many charters as there were ſhires (directed to the ſheriff of every county to proclaim them, for this is directed to, ſheriff of Herefordſhire) and, by the king’s expreſs order, were to be laid up in the abbies of the ſeveral counties for a monument; yet, becauſe the thing was beyond the memory of man, and that age not very converſant with book learning or records, it ſeems not to be known to them; and the archbiſhop ſays, “Inventa eſt quoque nunc charta quædam  I.” But, when the lords had once ſeen it, they were, ſo fond of it, that they got it from the archbiſhop: and the next year, about Michaelmas, when the King was returning out of France, the earls and barons met at St. Edmund’s bury, it might be thought for devotion, but it was to conſult about their liberties; and there the charter of  I. which contained their laws and liberties was again produced and treated of among