Stubbs, _Const. Hist._, II. 25. Footnote 249: See _infra_ under chapter 9. Footnote 250: _Great Charter_, xxxix., and _cf. infra_, p. 201. Footnote 251: The Forest Charter, preserved in the archives of Durham Cathedral, bears this date, and that, in itself, affords some presumption that the Charter of Liberties (undated) to which it forms a supplement was executed at the same time. M. Bémont accepts this date; see his _Chartes_, xxviii., and authorities there cited. Blackstone, _Great Charter_, xxxix., gives the probable date as 23rd September. Dr. Stubbs, always catholic in his sympathies, gives both dates, 23rd September in _Sel. Charters_, 344, and 6th November in _Const. Hist._, II. 26. This Charter of Liberties of 1217, originally found among the archives of Gloucester Abbey and now in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, still bears the impression of two seals—that of Gualo in yellow wax, and that of the Regent in green. See Blackstone, _Great Charter_, p. xxxv. The existence of the separate Forest Charter was only surmised by Blackstone, _Ibid._, p. xlii.; but shortly after he wrote, an original of it was found among the archives of Durham Cathedral. For an account of this and of its discovery, see Thomson, _Magna Charta_, pp. 443-5. ----- The issue of these two Charters put the copestone to the general pacification of the kingdom. After the wide-spread havoc wrought by two years of civil war, the moment had come for a definite and final declaration by the Regent of his policy for ruling an England once more at peace. Not only was he bound in honour to this course by the Treaty of Lambeth, but the opportunity was a good one for fulfilling the promise made in chapter 42 of the Charter of 1216. Accordingly the respiting clause of that document now disappeared altogether, and some new clauses took its place. The matters reserved for further discussion as “_gravia et dubitabilia_” had now been reconsidered and were either finally abandoned, or else accepted with more or less radical alterations. The results of these deliberations are to be found in a number of additions to the Charter of Liberties of 1217, the most important of which are chapters 44 and 46, and in the terms of a Forest Charter now granted for the first time. Chapter 46 is a “saving clause,” reserving to archbishops, bishops, abbots, priors, templars, hospitallers, earls, barons, and all other persons, cleric and lay, the liberties and free customs which they previously had. The vagueness of this provision (a mere reference to the undefined and misty past) deprived it of all practical value. The other addition was of much greater importance.