sions of the Great Charter. The King
(Henry III.) had sworn again and again to observe the Charter, but his
oath was no sooner taken than it was unscrupulously broken. The
barons, with the patriotic Simon de Montfort at their head, were
determined to uphold the rights of the people, and insisted on the
king's compliance with the provisions of the Charter; and this
struggle with the Crown yielded one of the greatest events of
Christmastide: the summoning of the first national Parliament. By
summoning the representatives of the cities and boroughs to sit beside
the knights of the shires, the barons and the bishops in the
Parliament of the realm, Simon de Montfort created a new force in
English politics. This first national assembly met at Westminster, in
January, 1265, while the king was a prisoner of Earl Simon. The form
of national representation thus inaugurated had an immense influence
on the rising liberties of the people, and has endured to our own
times. It is not surprising, therefore, that the adoption of this
measure by the great Earl of Leicester invested his memory with a
lustre which has not been dimmed by the lapse of centuries. The
paltering of the king called forth the patriotism of the people. "So
may a glory from defect arise." The sevenfold lustre of the rainbow is
only seen when there is rain as well as sun.

"Only the prism's obstruction shows aright
The secret of a sunbeam, breaks its light
Into the jewelled bow from blankest white;
So may a glory from defect arise."[19]

[Illustration]

THE DEATH OF ROBIN HOOD ON CHRISTMAS EVE.

The famous freebooter, Robin Hood, who, according to tradition,
flourished in Sherwood Forest in the distracted reign of Henry the
Third, is said to have died on Christmas Eve, in the year 1247. The
career of this hero of many popular ballads is not part of our
subject, though Hone[20] records his death as a Christmas event; and
Stowe, writing in 1590, evidently believes in Robin Hood as an
historical personage, for he says, "he suffered no woman to be
oppressed ... poor men's goods he spared, abundantly relieving them
with that which by theft he got from the abbeys, and the houses of
rich old earles."

From the doubtful doings of the romantic chief and his band of
freebooters, we now pass on to the

REIGN OF EDWARD THE FIRST.

[Illustration]

Edward the First was in the truest sense a national king. He was
English to the core, and he won the love o