These were the main alterations made in 1217 in the tenor of the Great Charter.[[267]] This re-issue is of great importance, since it represents practically the final form taken by the Charter, only two changes being made in subsequent issues.[[268]] On the 22nd February, 1218, copies of the Great Charter in this new form were sent to the sheriffs to be published and enforced. In the writs accompanying them, the special attention directed to the clause against unlicensed castles shows the importance attached to their demolition.[[269]]
The Regent and the ministers of the Crown seem to have felt increasingly the inconvenience of conducting the government without a great seal of the King. There was a natural reluctance to accept grants authenticated merely by substitutes for it, since these might not be treated as binding on the monarch when he came of age. The Regent at last agreed to the engraving of a great seal for Henry, but not without misgivings. To prevent it being used by unscrupulous ministers to validate lavish grants to their own favourites to the impoverishment of the Crown, the Council, on the advice of the Regent, issued a proclamation that no charter or other deed implying perpetuity should be granted under the new seal during the King’s minority—a saving clause of which Henry was destined to make a startling use. This proclamation was probably issued soon after Michaelmas 1218.[[270]]
On 14th May, 1219, England lost a trusted ruler through the death of the aged Regent, whose loyalty, firmness, and moderation had contributed so much to repair the breaches made in the body politic by John’s evil deeds, and the consequent civil war. After the good Earl of Pembroke’s death, the Bishop of Winchester and Hubert de Burgh contended for the chief place in Henry’s councils, with alternating success, but neither of them succeeded to the title of Rector regis et regni.[[271]] A few years later, the young King seems to have grown impatient under the restraints of a minority, and the Roman Curia was ready to bid for his goodwill by humouring him. In 1223 Honorius III., by letter dated 13th April, declared Henry (then only in his sixteenth year) to be of full age as regarded most of the duties of a king.[[272]]
The terms of this papal letter may have suggested to some of Henry’s councillors the possibility of renouncing the Charters on the ground that they had been granted to the prejudice of the King before he had been declared of full age. One of his flatterers, William Briwere by name, at a “colloquium” held in January, 1223, advised him to repudiate the two Charters when requested by Stephen Langton to confirm them. Briwere’s bold words are reported by Matthew Paris.[[273]] “Libertates quas petitis, quia violenter extortae fuerunt, non debent de jure observari.” This doctrine of repudiation moved the primate to anger, and Henry, still accustomed to leading-strings, gave way, swearing to observe the terms of both charters. An element of truth, however, underlay Briwere’s advice, and the whole incident probably showed to the more far-seeing friends of liberty the necessity of a new and voluntary confirmation of the Charters by the King. An opportunity for securing this occurred next year, when Henry at Christmas, 1224, demanded one-fifteenth of all his subjects’ moveables. He was met by a firm request that he should, in return for so large a grant, renew Magna Carta. The result was the re-issue on 11th February, 1225, of both Charters each of which was, as a matter of course, fortified by the impression of the great seal recently made. The importance of the whole transaction was enhanced by the declaration made by Honorius III. only two years previously, that Henry was of full age to act for himself. The new forest Charter was practically identical with that issued in 1217; while the only alterations in the tenor of the Charter of Liberties were the result of a laudable determination to place on record the circumstances in which it had been granted. In the new preamble Henry stated that he conceded it “spontanea et bona voluntate nostra” and all reference to the consent of his magnates was omitted, although a great number of names appear as witnesses at the close of the Charter. These alterations were intended to emphasize the fact that no pressure had been brought to bear on him, and thus to meet future objections such as William Briwere had suggested in 1223, namely, that the confirmation of the Charter had been extorted by force.[[274]]
The “consideration” also clearly appears in the concluding portion of the Charter, where it is stated that in return for the foregoing gift of liberties along with those granted in the Forest Charter, the archbishops, bishops, abbots, priors, earls, barons, knights, free tenants, and all others of the realm had given a fifteenth part of their moveables to the King.
The prominence given to this feature brings the transaction embodied in the re-issue of 1225 (as compared with the original grant of 1215) one step nearer the legal category of “private bargain.” It is, in one aspect, simply a contract of purchase and sale. Another important new clause follows—founded probably on a precedent taken from chapter 61 of the Charter of King John: Henry is made significantly to declare “And we have granted to them for us and our heirs, that neither we nor our heirs shall procure any thing whereby the liberties in this charter shall be infringed or broken; and if any thing shall be procured by any person contrary to these premises, it shall be held of no validity or effect.” This provision was clearly directed against future papal dispensations or abrogations, such as that which King John had obtained from Innocent in 1215. The clause, however, was diplomatically made quite general in its terms.[[275]]
One original copy of this third re-issue of the Great Charter is preserved at Durham with the great seal in green wax still perfect, though the parchment has been “defaced and obliterated by the unfortunate accident of overturning a bottle of ink.”[[276]] A second is to be found at Lacock Abbey, in Wiltshire. The accompanying Forest Charter is also preserved at Durham.[[277]]
This third re-issue brings the story of the genesis of the Great Charter to an end. It marked the final form assumed by Magna Carta; the identical words were then used which afterwards became stereotyped and were confirmed, time after time, without further modification. It is this Charter of 1225 which is always referred to in the ordinary editions of the Statutes, in the courts of law, in parliament, and in a long series of classical law books beginning with the second Institute of Sir Edward Coke.[[278]]
Although the Charter, thus, in 1225 took the permanent place it has since retained among the fundamental laws of England, it was not yet secure from attacks. Two years later the actions of Henry raised strong suspicions that he would gladly annul it, if he dared.
The young King, in spite of the Pope’s bull declaring him of full age in 1223, had in reality only passed from one set of guardians to another; he had long chafed under the domination of the able but unscrupulous Peter des Roches, Bishop of Winchester, when in the beginning of 1227 he suddenly rebelled. Acting probably under the advice of Hubert de Burgh, who wished to return to power, Henry determined to shake off the control of Bishop Peter. At a Council held at Oxford in January, 1227, Henry, though not yet twenty, declared himself of full age;[[279]] and soon thereafter showed what use he intended to make of his newly acquired freedom. Making an unexpected application of the proclamation issued by the Regent, William Marshal, in 1218, that the great seal should not, during the minority, be used to authenticate any grants in perpetuity of royal demesne lands or other rights of the Crown, Henry now interpreted this to imply the nullity of all charters whatsoever which had been issued under the great seal since his accession. He even tentatively applied this startling doctrine to the Forest Charter.