Magna Carta: A Commentary on the Great Charter of King John / With an Historical Introduction

by William Sharp McKechnie

[6]. W. Coventry, II. 207; R. Wendover, III. 239.

[7]. From their possible connection with the wording of the famous chapter 39 of Magna Carta, it may be worth while to quote the exact words in which Ralph de Coggeshall, Chronicon Anglicanum, p. 165, describes this event, which he places (probably wrongly) in the year 1213.—“Rex Eustachium de Vesci et Robertum filium Walteri, in comitatibus tertio requisitos, cum eorum fautoribus utlaghiari fecit, castra eorum subvertit, praedia occupavit.”

[8]. See Miss Norgate, John Lackland, 170, and authorities there cited.

[9]. Ibid., 292–3.

[10]. The late Cardinal Manning in an article in the Contemporary Review for December, 1875 (since published in book form), on the Pope and Magna Carta, insists, probably with reason, that contemporary opinion saw nothing disgraceful in the surrender, rather the reverse.

[11]. R. Coggeshall, p. 167.

[12]. Stubbs, Const. Hist., I. 566.

[13]. R. Wendover, III. 261-2.

[14]. Roger of Wendover, III. 263-6. Blackstone (Great Charter, Introduction, p. vi.), makes the apposite comment that it seems unlikely that the discovery by the Archbishop of a charter probably already well known “should be a matter of such novelty and triumph.”

[15]. R. Wendover, III. 262-3.