The Court of Common Pleas (cases between subjects) was to sit at Westminster (and not to follow the king in his wanderings), and judges of assize were to go on circuit four times a year.
No free man was to be seized, imprisoned, ousted of his land, outlawed, banished, or in any way brought to ruin, save by the legal judgment of his peers or by the law of the land.
To no man was justice to be sold, denied, or postponed by the king.
The free right of Englishmen and foreigners to pass in and out of the country in time of peace was granted.
The king’s mercenaries, “all the gang that came with horses and arms to the hurt of the realm,” were to be sent out of England.
Finally, by a supplementary document, the barons present at Runnymead were to choose out of the whole baronage twenty-five sworn guardians of the Charter, who, in the event of any violation of its articles, were not to hesitate from making war on the king till the matter had been put right.
Well might John exclaim, in a wild burst of rage, when the Charter was signed, and he was alone with his foreign troops, “They have given me five-and-twenty over-kings!”
The twenty-five were to ensure the king’s obedience to the Charter, but who was to ensure the obedience of the twenty-five?—all of whom were of the party of revolt against the king. A safeguard was obviously necessary, and a second court of barons, thirty-eight in number, was chosen—(which included William the Marshall)—and these first swore obedience to the twenty-five, and then a second oath to enforce on king and barons mutual respect.[31]
The Great Charter was signed, and within a week it was published throughout all England. But the “sort of peace” patched up between John and the barons was not to last. None of the barons believed that the king would abide by the oaths he had sworn, and they, for their part, prepared for war.[32]
To the Continent John looked for aid, “seeking to be revenged upon his enemies by two swords, the sword of the spirit and the sword of the flesh, so that if one failed he could count upon the other for success.” He had appealed to the pope in May, and Innocent’s reply had been a general condemnation of all disturbers of the peace. Pandulf, the papal legate, was at Runnymead, and in August, when the barons were openly making ready for hostilities, he and Peter des Roches, of Winchester, called on Stephen Langton to enforce the papal sentence of excommunication against certain of the barons. Langton, who was about to set out to Rome for a general council, declined to do this until he had seen the pope and discussed the whole question with him. He believed the sentence had been drawn up by the pope under a misunderstanding. Thereupon Pandulf and Peter des Roches, by virtue of their authority, declared Stephen disobedient to the papal mandate, and pronounced his suspension from his office of archbishop.