This chapter of Magna Carta would, therefore, have imposed not the slightest restraint upon the power of the king, or afforded the slightest protection to the liberties of the people, if the laws of the king had been embraced in theterm legem terrae. But if legem terrae was the common law, which the king was sworn to maintain, then a real restriction was laid upon his power, and a real guaranty given to the people for their liberties. Such, then, being the meaning of legem terrae, the fact is established that Magna Carta took an accused person entirely out of the hands of the legislative power, that is, of the king; and placed him in the power and under the protection of his peers, and the common law alone; that, in short, Magna Carta suffered no man to be punished for violating any enactment of the legislative power, unless the peers or equals of the accused. freely consented to it, or the common law authorized it; that the legislative power, of itself, was wholly incompetent to require the conviction or punishment of a man for any offence whatever. Whether Magna Carta allowed of any other trial than by jury. The question here arises, whether "legem terrae did not allow of some other mode of trial than that by jury. The answer is, that, at the time of Magna Carta, it is not probable, (for the reasons given in the note,) that legem terrae authorized, in criminal cases, any other trial than the trial by jury; but, if it did, it certainly authorized none but the trial by battle, the trial by ordeal, and the trial by compurgators. These were the only modes of trial, except by jury, that had been knownin England, in criminal cases, for some centuries previous to Magna Carta. All of them had become nearly extinct at the time of Magna Carta, and it is not probable that they were included in "legem terrae," as that term is used in that instrument. But if they were included in it, they have now been long obsolete, and were such as neither this nor any future age will ever return to. [23] For all practical puposes of the present day, therefore, it may be asserted that Magna Carta allows no trial whatever but trial by jury. Whether Magna Carta allowed sentence to be fixed otherwise than by the jury. Still another question arises on the words legem terrae, viz., whether, in cases where the question of guilt was determined by the jury, the amount of punishment may not have been fixed by legem terrae, the Common Law, instead of its being fixed by the jury.