of all the
barons; and if any baron intended to give his daughter, sister, niece,
or kinswoman in marriage, it should only be necessary for him to
consult the king, who promised to take no money for his consent, nor
ever to refuse permission, unless the person to whom it was purposed
to many her should happen to be his enemy: he granted his barons and
military tenants the power of bequeathing, by will, their money or
personal estates; and if they neglected to make a will, he promised
that their heirs should succeed to them: he renounced the right of
imposing money-age, and of levying taxes at pleasure on the farms
which the barons retained in their own hands [f]: he made some general
professions of moderating fines: he offered a pardon for all offences;
and he remitted all debts due to the crown: he required that the
vassals of the barons should enjoy the same privileges which he
granted to his own barons: and he promised a general confirmation and
observance of the laws of King Edward. This is the substance of the
chief articles contained in that famous charter [g].
[FN [e] Chron. Sax. p. 208. Sim. Dunelm. p. 225. [f] See Appendix
II. [g] M. Paris, p. 38. Hoveden, p. 468. Brompton, p. 1021.
Hagulstadt, p. 310.]

To give greater authenticity to these concessions, Henry lodged a copy
of his charter in some abbey of each county, as if desirous that it
should be exposed to the view of all his subjects, and remain a
perpetual rule for the limitation and direction of his government: yet
it is certain, that, after the present purpose was served, he never
once thought, during his reign, of observing one single article of it;
and the whole fell so much into neglect and oblivion, that in the
following century, when the barons, who had heard an obscure tradition
of it, desired to make it the model of the great charter which they
exacted from King John, they could with difficulty find a copy of it
in the kingdom. But as to the grievances here meant to be redressed,
they were still continued in their full extent; and the royal
authority, in all those particulars, lay under no manner of
restriction. Reliefs of heirs, so capital an article, were never
effectually fixed till the time of Magna Charta [h]; and it is evident
that the general promise here given, of accepting a just and lawful
relief, ought to have been reduced to more precision, in order to give
security to the subject. The oppression of wardship and marriage