"It is admitted, on all hands, that it (Magna Carta) contains nothing but what was confirmatory of the common law, and the ancient usages of the realm, and is, properly speaking, only an enlargement of the charter of Henry I., and his successors." Crabbe's History of the English Law, p. 127. That the coronation oath of the kings subsequent to Magna Carta was, in substance, if not in form, "to maintain this law of the land, or common law," is shown by a statute of Edward Third, commencing as follows: "Edward, by the Grace of God, ect., ect., to the Sheriff of Stafford, Greeting: Because that by divers complaints made to us, we have perceived that the law of the land, which we by oath are bound to maintain," ect. St. 20 Edward III. (1346.) The following extract from Lord Somers' tract on Grand Juries shows that the coronation oath continued the same as late as 1616, (four hundred years after Magna Carta.) He says: "King James, in his speech to the judges, in the Star Chamber, Anno 1616, told them, 'That he had, after many years, resolved to renew his oath, made at his coronation, concerning justice, and the promise therein contained for maintaining the law of the land.' And, in the next page save one, says, 'I was sworn to maintain the law of the land, and therefore had been perjured if I had broken it. God is my judge, I never intended it.' "Somers on Grand Juries, p. 82. In 1688, the coronation oath was changed by act of Parliament, and the king was made to swear: "To govern the people of this kingdom of England, and the dominions thereto belonging, according to the statutes in Parliament agreed on, and the laws and customs of the same." St. 1 William and Mary, ch. 6. (1688.) The effect and legality of this oath will hereafter be considered. For the present it is sufficient to show, as has been already sufficiently done, that from the Saxon times until at least as lately as 1616, the coronation oath has been, in substance, to maintain the law of the land, or the common law, meaning thereby the ancient Saxon customs, as embodied in the laws of Alfred, of Edward the Confessor, and finally in Magna Carta. It may here be repeated that this oath plainly proves that the statutes of the king were of no authority over juries, if inconsistent with their ideas of right; because it was one part of the common law that juries should try all causes according to their own consciences, any legislation of the king to the contrary notwithstanding.[33] [1] Hale says:"The trial by jury of twelve men was the usual trial among the Normans, in most suits; especially in assizes, et juris utrum." 1 Hale's History of the Common Law, 219 This was in Normandy, before the conquest of England by the Normans. See Ditto, p. 218.