Such was the first agreement entered into between the King and all classes of his people.  Of the sixty-three articles which constitute it, the greater part, owing to the changes of time, are now obsolete; but three possess imperishable value.  These provide: 

(1) That no free man shall be imprisoned or proceeded against except by his peers,[1] or the law of the land. (2) That justice shall neither be sold, denied, nor delayed. (3) That all dues from the people to the King, unless otherwise distinctly specified, shall be imposed only with the conselt of the National Council (S144).

This last provision “converted the power of taxation into the shield of liberty."[2]

[1] Peers (from Latin pares):  equals; this clause secures a fair and open trial. [2] Sir J. Mackintosh’s “History of England.”  This provision was dropped in the next reign (see W. Stubb’s “Constitutional History of England"); but after the great civil war of the seventeenth century the principle it laid down was firmly reestablished.

Thus, for the first time, the interests of all classes were protected, and for the first time the English people appear in the constitutional history of the country as a united body.  So highly was this charter esteemed, that in the course of the next two centuries it was confirmed no less than thirty-seven times; and the very day that Charles II entered London, after the civil wars of the seventeenth century, the House of Commons asked him to confirm it again (1660).  Magna Carta was the first great step in that development of constitutional government in which England has taken the lead.

200.  John’s Efforts to break the Charter (1215).

But John had no sooner set his hand to this document than he determined to repudiate it.  He hired bands of soldiers on the Continent to come to his aid.  The charter had been obtained by armed revolt; for this reason the Pope opposed it.  He suspended Archbishop Langton (S196), and threatened the barons with excommunication (S167), if they persisted in enforcing the provisions of the charter.

201.  The Barons invite Louis of France to aid them (1215).

In their desperation,—­for the King’s hired foreign soldiers were now ravaging the country,—­the barons dispatched a messenger to John’s sworn enemy, Philip, King of France.  They invited him to send over his son, Prince Louis, to free them from tyranny, and become ruler of the kingdom.  He came with all speed, and soon made himself master of the southern counties.

202.  King John’s Death (1216).

John was the first sovereign who had styled himself, on his great seal, “King of England,"[1] thus formally claiming the actual ownership of the realm.  He was now to find that the sovereign who has no place in his subjects’ hearts has small hold of their possessions.

[1] The late Professor E. A. Freeman, in his “Norman Conquest,” I, 85, note, says that though Richard Coeur de Lion had used this title in issuing charters, yet John was the first king who put this inscription on the great seal.