John.  The most important difference is the omission in the later Charter of the 14th and 15th Articles of John’s Charter, by which the King is restricted from levying aids beyond the three ordinary ones, without the assent of the ‘Common Council of the Kingdom.’ and provision is made for summoning it.  This passage is restored by Edward I. Magna Charter has been solemnly confirmed upwards of thirty times.  See the chapter on the Great Charter, in Green’s History of the English People.  See also Stubbs’s Documents Illustrative of English History.  “The whole of the constitutional history of England,” says Stubbs, “is a commentary on this Charter, the illustration of which must be looked for in the documents that precede and follow.”

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“CONFIRMATIO CHARTARUM” OF EDWARD I.

1297.

I. Edward, by the grace of God, King of England, Lord of Ireland, and Duke Guyan, to all those that these present letters shall hear or see, greeting.  Know ye that we, to the honour of God and of holy Church, and to the profit of our realm, have granted for us and our heirs, that the Charter of Liberties and the Charter of the Forest, which were made by common assent of all the realm in the time of King Henry our father, shall be kept in every point without breach.  And we will that the same Charters shall be sent under our seal as well to our justices of the forest as to others, and to all sheriffs of shires, and to all our other officers, and to all our cities throughout the realm, together with our writs in the which it shall be contained that they cause the foresaid Charters to be published, and to declare to the people that we have confirmed them in all points; and that our justices, sheriffs, mayors, and other ministers, which under us have the laws of our land to guide, shall allow the said Charters pleaded before them in judgment in all their points; that is to wit, the Great Charter as the common law, and the Charter of the Forest according to the assize of the Forest, for the wealth of our realm.

II.  And we will that if any judgment be given from henceforth, contrary to the points of the Charters aforesaid, by the justices or by any other our ministers that hold plea before them against the points of the Charters, it shall be undone and holden for naught.

III.  And we will that the same Charters shall be sent under our seal to cathedral churches throughout our realm, there to remain, and shall be read before the people two times by the year.  IV.  And that all archbishops and bishops shall pronounce the sentence of great excommunication against all those that by word, deed, or counsel do contrary to the foresaid Charters, or that in any point break or undo them.  And that the said curses be twice a year denounced and published by the prelates aforesaid.  And if the prelates or any of them be remiss in the denunciation of the said sentences, the Archbishops of Canterbury and York for the time being, as is fitting, shall compel and distrain them to make that denunciation in form aforesaid.