[46]. E.g. chapters 48 and 52. For alterations directed against the trading classes, see chapters 12, 13, 35, and 41 infra.
[47]. Miss Norgate, John Lackland, 233, takes a different view, holding that the influence of Stephen Langton dates from an earlier period. The original articles “are obviously not the composition of the barons mustered under Robert Fitz-Walter,” who could never have risen to “the lofty conception embodied in the Charter—the conception of a contract between King and people which should secure equal rights to every class and every individual in the nation.” The correctness of this estimate is discussed infra.
[48]. No specimen of these Letters Testimonial is known to exist, but a copy is preserved on folio 234 of the Red Book of the Exchequer. See Appendix.
[49]. See Rot. Pat., I. 180, and Select Charters, 306–7.
[50]. New Rymer, I. 133. See Appendix. It is undated, but must be later than the letters to sheriffs concerning election of twelve knights, to which it alludes.
[51]. Rot. Pat., p. 181. As we have to depend for our knowledge of this important protest on one copy, engrossed on the back of a membrane of an official roll (No. 18 of John’s 17th year), it is possible to doubt its genuineness; but it is unlikely to be purely a forgery.
[52]. See Rot. Pat. and New Rymer, I. 134.
[53]. See R. Wendover, III. 302-318.
[54]. Great Charter, p. xxi.
[55]. Chron. Maj., II. 605-6.