Of the Great Charter, the trial by jury is the vital part, and the only part that places the liberties of the people in their own keeping. Of this Blackstone says:
"The trial by jury, or the country, per patriam, is also that trial by the peers of every Englishman, which, as the grand bulwark of his liberties, is secured to him by the Great Charter; nullus liber homo capiatur, vel imprisonetur, aut exuletur, aut aliquo modo destruatur, nisi per legale judicial parium suorum, vel per legem terrae.
The liberties of England cannot but subsist so long as this palladium remains sacred and inviolate, not only from all open, attacks, which none will be so hardy as to make, but also from all secret machinations which may sap and undermine it." [9]
"The trial by jury ever has been, and I trust ever will be, looked upon as the glory of the English law… It is the most transcendent privilege which any subject can enjoy or wish for, that he cannot be affected in his property, his liberty, or his person, but by the unanimous consent of twelve of his neighbors and equals."[10]
Hume calls the Trial by Jury "An institution admirable in itself, and the best calculated for the preservation of liberty and the administration of justice, that ever was devised by the wit of man." [11]
An old book, called "English Liberties," says:"English Parliaments have all along been most zealous for preserving this Great Jewel of Liberty, Trials by Juries having no less than fifty-eight several times, since the Norman Conquest, been established and confirmed by the legislative power, no one privilege besides having been ever so often remembered in parliament."{12]
[1] Mackintosh's Hist. of Eng., ch. 3. 45 Lardner's Cab. Cyc., 354.
[2] "Forty shilling freeholders" were those "people dwelling and resident in the same counties, whereof every one of them shall have free land or tenement to the value of forty shillings by the year at the least above all charges." By statute 8 Henry 6, ch. 7, (1429,) these freeholders only were allowed to vote for members of Parliament from the counties.
[3] He probably speaks in its favor only to blind the eyes of the people to the frauds he has attempted upon its true meaning.
[4] It will be noticed that Coke calls these confirmations of the charter "acts of parliament," instead of acts of the king alone. This needs explanation.