n:
we will not go against any man nor send against him, save by legal
judgement of his peers or by the law of the land." "To no man will we
sell," runs another, "or deny, or delay, right or justice." The great
reforms of the past reigns were now formally recognized; judges of assize
were to hold their circuits four times in the year, and the King's Court
was no longer to follow the king in his wanderings over the realm but to
sit in a fixed place. But the denial of justice under John was a small
danger compared with the lawless exactions both of himself and his
predecessor. Richard had increased the amount of the scutage which Henry
the Second had introduced, and applied it to raise funds for his ransom.
He had restored the Danegeld, or land-tax, so often abolished, under the
new name of "carucage," had seized the wool of the Cistercians and the
plate of the churches, and rated movables as well as land. John had again
raised the rate of scutage, and imposed aids, fines, and ransoms at his
pleasure without counsel of the baronage. The Great Charter met this
abuse by a provision on which our constitutional system rests. "No
scutage or aid [other than the three customary feudal aids] shall be
imposed in our realm save by the common council of the realm"; and to
this Great Council it was provided that prelates and the greater barons
should be summoned by special writ, and all tenants in chief through the
sheriffs and bailiffs, at least forty days before. The provision defined
what had probably been the common usage of the realm; but the definition
turned it into a national right, a right so momentous that on it rests
our whole Parliamentary life. Even the baronage seem to have been
startled when they realized the extent of their claim; and the provision
was dropped from the later issue of the Charter at the outset of the next
reign. But the clause brought home to the nation at large their
possession of a right which became dearer as years went by. More and more
clearly the nation discovered that in these simple words lay the secret
of political power. It was the right of self-taxation that England fought
for under Earl Simon as she fought for it under Hampden. It was the
establishment of this right which established English freedom.

The rights which the barons claimed for themselves they claimed for the
nation at large. The boon of free and unbought justice was a boon for
all, but a special provision protected the poor. The