the nation, and ſo well approved, that Fortescue[1], applauding our laws, triumphs in this, That they paſſed through all the Britiſh, Roman, Daniſh, Saxon, and Norman times, with little or no alteration in the main. Now, ſays he, if they had not been liked by theſe people, they would have been altered. Accordingly, in this laſt Norman revolution K. William I. (falſly and flatteringly called the conqueror) ſwore to the inviolable obſervation of them under this title, of “The good, antient, and approved laws of the realm,” and particularly and by name, K. Edward’s laws. So antient is the matter and ſubſtance of Magna Charta.
Secondly, Nor was the manner and form of granting theſe laws by charter, or under hand and ſeal, with the confirmation of an oath over and above the coronation-oath, any new invention or innovation at all, for as William I. began it, ſo I am ſure that Henry I. and K. Stephen, and Henry II. did the ſame before: and therefore if the obſcure birth of Magna Charta was in K. John’s time, it was then born with a
- ↑ De Laud. Leg. Ang.
