Читать книгу Magna Carta: A Commentary on the Great Charter of King John. With an Historical Introduction онлайн

168 страница из 194

ssss1. Round, Geoffrey, 22.

ssss1. Round, Geoffrey, 23–4.

ssss1. Stephen was not justified in this last assumption. See Round, Geoffrey, 9.

ssss1. The charter of Henry II. is given in Bémont, Chartes, 13, and in Select Charters, 135. It seems worth while to mention in this connection a notable mistake of a writer whose usual accuracy is envied by his brother historians. Mr. J. H. Round (Engl. Hist. Rev., VIII. 292) declares that “the royal power had increased so steadily that Henry II. and his sons had been able to abstain from issuing charters, and had merely taken the old tripartite oath.”

ssss1. See supra, p. ssss1, and Round, Eng. Hist. Rev., VIII. 292.

ssss1. Supra, p. ssss1.

ssss1. Supra, p. 35.

ssss1. Supra, p. 38.

ssss1

Much ingenuity has been expended, without adequate return, in the effort to discover which particular category of modern jurisprudence most exactly describes the Great Charter of John. Is it an enacted law, or a treaty; the royal answer to a petition; or a declaration of rights? Is it a simple pact, bargain, or agreement between contracting parties? Or is it a combination of two or more of these? Something has been said in favour of almost every possible view, perhaps more to the bewilderment than to the enlightenment of students of history uninterested in legal subtleties.