“The bonds of unwritten custom, which the older grants did little more than recognize, had proved too weak to hold Angevins; and the baronage now threw them aside for the restraints of written law. It is in this way that the Great Charter marks the transition from the age of traditional rights, preserved in the nation’s memory and officially declared by the primate, to the age of written legislation, of parliaments and statutes, which was soon to come.” (J. R. Green.) The first article of the Charter guaranteed the freedom of the English Church, and, in especial, the freedom of elections, “which was reputed most requisite.” By the Great Charter the feudal rights of the king over his vassals were defined and settled, and the tenants of the barons were protected in similar way from the lawless exactions of their lords. No scutage or aid was to be levied by the crown, “save by the common council of the realm”--except the three customary feudal aids for the ransoming of the king, the knighting of his eldest son, and the marriage of his eldest daughter. This common council, consisting of bishops, abbots, earls, and greater barons, was to be summoned by special writ. The free rights of London and the other chartered towns were fully admitted. The Court of Common Pleas (cases between subjects) was to sit at Westminster (and not to follow the king in his wanderings), and judges of assize were to go on circuit four times a year. No free man was to be seized, imprisoned, ousted of his land, outlawed, banished, or in any way brought to ruin, save by the legal judgment of his peers or by the law of the land. To no man was justice to be sold, denied, or postponed by the king. The free right of Englishmen and foreigners to pass in and out of the country in time of peace was granted. The king’s mercenaries, “all the gang that came with horses and arms to the hurt of the realm,” were to be sent out of England. Finally, by a supplementary document, the barons present at Runnymead were to choose out of the whole baronage twenty-five sworn guardians of the Charter, who, in the event of any violation of its articles, were not to hesitate from making war on the king till the matter had been put right. Well might John exclaim, in a wild burst of rage, when the Charter was signed, and he was alone with his foreign troops, “They have given me five-and-twenty over-kings!” The twenty-five were to ensure the king’s obedience to the Charter, but who was to ensure the obedience of the twenty-five?--all of whom were of the party of revolt against the king. A safeguard was obviously necessary, and a second court of barons, thirty-eight in number, was chosen--(which included William the Marshall)--and these first swore obedience to the twenty-five, and then a second oath to enforce on king and barons mutual respect.[31]