II. And we wish that if any judgments be given henceforth against the provisions of the aforesaid charters, by justices and other officials of ours who hold pleas before them contrary to any point contained in the charters, they shall be undone and held as nought.
III. And we wish that these same charters under our seal be sent to the cathedral churches throughout our kingdom, and remain there; and that they be twice a year read before the people.
IV. And Archbishops and Bishops shall pronounce the sentence of great excommunication against all those who shall come against the aforesaid charters in act, in deed, or in counsel, or shall infringe or oppose them in any way; and such sentences shall be pronounced and published twice a year by the aforesaid prelates. And should the same prelates, or any of them, be negligent in making the aforesaid denunciation, they shall, as is fitting, be reproved by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York for the time being, and compelled to publish the denunciation in the form aforesaid.
V. And because the people in our kingdom fear lest the aids and tasks, which they have hitherto given us for our wars and our needs, of their own grant and their own free will, in whatever manner they have been made, may become a fixed service for them and their heirs, should they at some time be found in the rolls, and likewise prises that have been taken throughout the kingdom by our officials in our own name, we have granted for ourselves and our heirs, that we shall not turn into a custom such aids, tasks, and prises, for anything that may be done or hereafter found in the rolls or in any other manner.
VI. We have also granted, for ourselves and our heirs, to the Archbishops, Bishops, Abbots, Priors, and other people of Holy Church, as also to the Earls and Barons and the commonalty of the whole realm, that never for any need shall we take in our kingdom such manner of aids, tasks, and prises, except by common consent of the whole kingdom and to the common profit thereof, save the ancient aids and prises due and accustomed.
VII. And forasmuch as the greater part of the commonalty of the realm feel themselves sore grieved by the maletote of wool, that is to say, a tax of forty shillings on each sack, and have begged us to release the same, we have fully released it in answer to their request; and we have granted that we shall never take it nor any other, without their common assent and their good will; saving to us and to our heirs the custom on wool, skins, and leather, before granted by the commonalty of the realm aforesaid.
In witness whereof we have issued these letters patent. Witness Edward our son at London, on the tenth day of October, in the twenty-fifth year of our reign.
And be it remembered that this same charter in the same terms, word for word, was sealed in Flanders, under the great seal of the King, at Ghent, on the fifth day of November, in the twenty-fifth year of the reign of our aforesaid lord the King, and sent to England.
THE BATTLE OF FALKIRK (1298).
Source.—Walter of Hemingburgh's Chronicle, vol. ii., pp. 177-181. (English Historical Society Publications.)