Page:A History and Defence of Magna Charta.djvu/99

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MAGNA CHARTA.
53

the ſame kind.” And a week after Twelftide the marſhal and Leoline entered the King’s lands, and laid them waſte as far as Shrewſbury, the King and biſhop Peter being ſtill at Glouceſter; but not, having ſtrength to oppoſe them, they retired to Wincheſter. But the King’s heart was ſo hardened againſt the marſhal by the evil counſel that he made uſe of, that when the biſhops admoniſhed him to make peace with the marſhal “Who fought for the cauſe of juſtice[1],” he made anſwer, “That he never would make peace with him, unleſs he would acknowledge himſelf a traitor with a halter about his neck.”

When the biſhop of Wincheſter and the other evil counſellors of the King ſaw all their meaſures broken, and the Poitovins thus cut off by the marſhal, deſpairing ever to overcome him by force of arms, they fell to plotting and laying a train for his life, which was by a letter ſent into Ireland to this effect: “Whereas Richard, late marſhal of the King of England, for his manifeſt treaſon, was, by judgment of the ſaid King’s court, baniſhed the realm, and for ever outed of all the patrimony and poſſeſſions he


  1. Qui pro juſtitia decertabat.
had