Page:A History and Defence of Magna Charta.djvu/93

Rh did not ſuffer it to be done. Though many that were there preſent, humbly beſought him for God’s ſake, that he would make peace with his barons and nobles. And other perſons in favour with the King, namely, the friars, predicants, and minorites, whom he uſed to reverence and hearken to, theſe earneſtly exhorted him, that, he would ſtudy to carry himſelf lovingly as he ought to do towards his natural ſubjects, whom without judgment of their peers he had driven into baniſhment, burned their manor-houſes, cut down their woods, deſtroyed their ponds; and being led and miſsled by the bad counſel of bad men, ſets aſide his lieges whoſe native blood-would never ſuffer them to warp, and prefers other whiffling people before them; and, which is worſe, calls thoſe traitors by whom he ought to order the peace and counſels of the realm, and ſettle all affairs. To this the biſhop of Wincheſter made anſwer, that the peers of England are not as they are in France; and therefore the King may judge and condemn and baniſh any of them by his own juſtices of his own appointing. The biſhops hearing this, as it were with one voice, began to threaten that they would excommunicate the principal of the King’s evil counſellors by name; and they named the biſhop himſelf as the