Page:A History and Defence of Magna Charta.djvu/62

16 laws aboliſhed.” In both theſe affairs he tranſacted for the king, having in this laſt, together with the biſhop of Wincheſter, the government of the kingdom committed to him, the King being then abſent, on his way to France.

the barons at laſt have their long loſt rights reſtored and confirmed, to the univerſal joy of the nation: but this is ſoon overcaſt. For King immediately reſolves to undo all that he had done, being prompted thereto, not only by his own arbitrary and tyrannical diſpoſition, but alſo by his foreign mercenaries, whom he had long made his favourites and confidents, while he looked upon his own natural ſubjects as abjects. The Flanders Ruyters, or cavaliers, who now by Magna Charta were expreſsly, and by name, ordered to be expelled the kingdom, as a nuiſance to the realm; theſe being grown his ſaucy familiars, ſo followed him with deriſion, and reproaches, “For unkinging himſelf by theſe conceſſions, and making himſelf a cypher, and our ſovereign lord of no dominions, a ſlave to his ſubjects,” and the like, that they made him ſtark mad: and being given over to rage and revenge, he privately retires to the Iſle of Wight, where, as ſays, he provides himſelf of St. Peter’s two