Page:A History and Defence of Magna Charta.djvu/61

Rh claim and keep the peace immediately after the death of his brother ) “That the earl would reſtore all men their rights.”

was done at an aſſembly of the peers at Northampton, before his coming out of Normandy to be crowned. “Sub tali igitur conventione comites & barones comiti fidelitatem contra omnes homines juraverunt.” Upon theſe terms, and no otherwiſe, the barons ſwore fealty to him: which made K.  ſo much rejoice at ’s death, and ſwear, “That then, and not before, he was king and lord of England.” For, from thenceforward, ſays, he was more at liberty to contravene his oaths and covenants, which with this  he had made ſore againſt his will, and looſe himſelf from the bonds of the peace he had entered into. Now theſe pacts and covenants are clearly that before his coronation, which I have juſt now recited, and that this parliament at St. Alban’s, anno 1213, not a year before this great man’s death. Where the King’s peace was publicly declared to all his people, and it was ſtrictly commanded, on the King’s behalf “That the laws of his great grandfather, I. ſhould be kept by the whole realm, and all