learns to remember that he is the citizen of
a free state, and to claim the common law as his birthright, even though
the violence of power should interrupt its enjoyment. It were a strange
misrepresentation of history to assert that the constitution had
attained anything like a perfect state in the fifteenth century; but I
know not whether there are any essential privileges of our countrymen,
any fundamental securities against arbitrary power, so far as they
depend upon positive institution, which may not be traced to the time
when the house of Plantagenet filled the English throne.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The fullest account we possess of these domestic transactions from
1294 to 1298 is in Walter Hemingford, one of the historians edited by
Hearne, p. 52-168. They have been vilely perverted by Carte, but
extremely well told by Hume, the first writer who had the merit of
exposing the character of Edward I. See too Knyghton in Twysden's Decem
Scriptores, col. 2492.

[2] Walsingham, in Camden's Scriptores Rer. Anglicarum, p. 71-73.

[3] Edward would not confirm the charters, notwithstanding his promise,
without the words, salvo jure coronae nostrae; on which the two earls
retired from court. When the confirmation was read to the people at St.
Paul's, says Hemingford, they blessed the king on seeing the charters
with the great seal affixed; but when they heard the captious
conclusion, they cursed him instead. At the next meeting of parliament,
the king agreed to omit these insidious words, p. 168.

[4] The supposed statute, De Tallagio non concedendo, is considered by
Blackstone (Introduction to Charters, p. 67) as merely an abstract of
the Confirmatio Chartarum. By that entitled Articuli super Chartas, 28
Edw. I., a court was erected in every county, of three knights or
others, to be elected by the commons of the shire, whose sole province
was to determine offences against the two charters, with the power of
punishing by fine and imprisonment; but not to extend to any case
wherein a remedy by writ was already provided. The Confirmatio Chartarum
is properly denominated a statute, and always printed as such; but in
form, like Magna Charta, it is a charter, or letters patent, proceeding
from the crown, without even reciting the consent of the realm. And its
"teste" is at Ghent, 2 Nov. 1297; Edward having engaged, conjointly with
the count of Flanders, in a war with Philip the Fair. But a parliament
had been held at London,