Page:A History and Defence of Magna Charta.djvu/169

will allow the deſtroying of a brave baron, William Brause, and the famiſhing of his wife and two ſons in Windſor Caſtle, for a raſh word of her’s; and the putting the archdeacon of Norwich into a ſheet of lead, and ſeveral ſuch barbarities, to be choice and eminent inſtances of it. So that when the pope charges the barons with the breach of their oath of fidelity to King John, it is unknown to me that they owed him any; which King John himſelf ſeemed to miſtruſt, when after the barons demand of their liberties, he uſed that fruitleſs precaution of cauſing his whole kingdom to ſwear fidelity to him, and renew their homages. For what ſignified this ſwearing to him never ſo often, while he himſelf was breaking the original contract, and rendering all their fidelities meer nullities, by deſtroying the foundation of them, and the only conſideration upon which they were made? It is, as Laud ſays, “A covenant is a knot, you need not looſe both ends of it, but untying one end you unty both.” And ſuch is the mutual bond of ligeance betwixt King and people, it is conditional and reciprocal: and therefore it was impoſſible for King John’s ſubjects to be bound while he was looſe. That the fidelity of King’s and ſubjects to each other is mutual, conditional, reci-

procal,