Page:A History and Defence of Magna Charta.djvu/162

it was time, ſeeing that all they had lay at ſtake under a cruel and inſolent prince. Whereupon^[1] K. William being in a bodily fear of baſely loſing the whole kingdom, which he had gained with the effuſion of ſo much blood, and of being cut off himſelf, called a parliament to Barkhamſted, where he ſwore over again “To obſerve inviolably the good, antient, approved laws of the realm, and eſpecially the laws of K. Edward.” How inviolably he afterwards kept that oath, and how “he^[2] enriched his Normans with the ſpoils of his own natural men, the Engliſh, who, of their own accord, prefered him to the crown,” I had rather the reader himſelf ſhould find out, by his own peruſal of that inſtructive piece of hiſtory. Secondly, The Engliſh government is upon covenant and contract. Now it is needleſs in leagues and covenants to ſay, what ſhall be done in caſe the articles are broken. If ſatisfaction be denied, the injured

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1. Cœpit igitur rex vehementer ſibi timere, ne totum regnum, quod tanti ſanguinis effuſione adquiſierat, turpiter amitteret, etiam trucidatus.
2. Leges violans memoratas, ſuos Normannos, in ſuorum hominum Anglorum naturalium quiipſum ſponte ſublimaverunt, provocationem, locupletavit.

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