e, they required that he should ratify the Great
Charter in a manner still more authentic and solemn than any which he
had hitherto employed. All the prelates and abbots were assembled.
They held burning tapers in their hands. The Great Charter was read
before them. They denounced the sentence of excommunication against
every one who should thenceforth violate that fundamental law. They
threw their tapers on the ground, and exclaimed, _May the soul of
every one who incurs this sentence so stink and corrupt in hell!_ The
king bore a part in this ceremony, and subjoined, 'So help me God! I
will keep all these articles inviolate, as I am a man, as I am a
Christian, as I am a knight, and as I am a king crowned and
anointed.'"--_Hume_, ch. 12. See also _Blackstone's Introd. to the
Charters. Black. Law Tracts_, Oxford ed., p. 332. _Mackintosh's Hist.
of Eng._, ch. 3. _Lardner's Cab. Cyc._, vol. 45, p. 233-4.

The following is the form of "the sentence of excommunication" referred
to by Hume:

"_The Sentence of Curse, Given by the Bishops, against the Breakers
of the Charters._

"The year of our Lord a thousand two hundred and fifty-three, the
third day of May, in the great Hall of the King at Westminster, _in
the presence, and by the assent, of the Lord Henry, by the Grace of
God King of England_, and the Lords Richard, Earl of Cornwall, his
brother, Roger (Bigot) Earl of Norfolk and Suffolk, marshal of
England, Humphrey, Earl of Hereford, Henry, Earl of Oxford, John,
Earl of Warwick, and other estates of the Realm of England: We,
Boniface, by the mercy of God Archbishop of Canterbury, Primate of
all England, F. of London, H. of Ely, S. of Worcester, E. of Lincoln,
W. of Norwich, P. of Hereford, W. of Salisbury, W. of Durham, R. of
Exeter, M. of Carlisle, W. of Bath, E. of Rochester, T. of Saint
David's, Bishops, apparelled in Pontificals, with tapers burning,
against the breakers of the Church's Liberties, and of the Liberties
or free customs of the Realm of England, and especially of those
which are contained in the Charter of the Common Liberties of the
Realm, and the Charter of the Forest, have solemnly denounced the
sentence of Excommunication in this form. By the authority of
Almighty God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, and of the
glorious Mother of God, and perpetual Virgin Mary, of the blessed
Apostles