Nevertheless, with the exception of the King’s actual ministers, and of those foreigners, the introduction of whom was one of his gravest errors, the whole of John’s own following acknowledged the justice of the baronial claims, sympathized with the demands raised, and joined in putting them into the best shape. The movement was in fact, even where not in form, national. [Sidenote: Magna Charta.] The terms of the Charter were in accordance with this state of affairs. To the Church were secured its rights and the freedom of election (1). To the feudal tenants just arrangements in the matters of wardship, of heirship, widowhood, and marriage (2-8). Scutage and aids, which John had from the beginning of his reign taken as a matter of course, were henceforward to be granted by the great council of the kingdom, except in three cases, the deliverance of the king from prison, the knighting of his eldest son, and the marriage of his eldest daughter (12). The same right was secured by the immediate tenants to their sub-tenants. The great council was to consist of archbishops, bishops and abbots, counts and greater barons, summoned severally by writ, and of the rest of the tenants in chief, summoned by general writ to the sheriff (14). The lands of sub-tenants, seized by the king for treason or felony, were to be held by him for a year only, and then to be handed over to the tenant’s immediate lord (32). Similarly the crown was no longer to claim wardship in the case of sub-tenants, nor to change the custom of escheated baronies, nor to fill up vacancies in private abbeys (43, 46). These are all distinct regulations of feudal relations. The more general acts of tyranny of the crown were guarded against, by fixing the Court of Common Pleas at Westminster (17); by the settlement of land processes by itinerant justices in the counties where the disputes arose (18); by the limitations of punishments within reasonable limits (20-22); by the restriction of the powers of constables, sheriffs, and other royal officers, both in the matter of royal lawsuits and of purveyance (28-31); by an article (36), which is held to foreshadow the Habeas Corpus Act, stipulating the immediate trial of prisoners; and by other articles (38-40), which are held to foreshadow trial by jury, and which forbid the passing of sentence except on the verdict of a man’s equals, and witness upon oath. Other points secured their liberties to the free towns and to merchants. This Charter was to be guaranteed by the appointment of a committee of twenty-five nobles, any four of whom might claim redress for infractions of it, and upon refusal proceed to make war upon the king. [Sidenote: John’s attempts to break loose from it.] [Sidenote: Louis is summoned. 1216.]