Magna Carta: A Commentary on the Great Charter of King John: With an Historical IntroductionMcKechnie, William Sharp
History
Magna Carta: A Commentary on the Great Charter of King John: With an Historical Introduction
McKechnie, William Sharp
Constitutional history -- England -- Sources; Law -- England -- History; Law -- England -- Sources; Magna Carta
One entry in the _Memoranda Roll_ of 42 Henry III. (cited Madox I.
615) seems at first sight to contradict this. It seems in that year to
be admitted that the Crown could not exact more than 20s. of aid per
knight’s fee; but in 1258 the baronial opposition would be strong in
the Exchequer as elsewhere.
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Thus £2 per fee was taken in 1346 at the knighting of the Black Prince.
A Statute of Edward III.[116] at last extended to the Crown the same
measure of “reasonableness” as had been applied three-quarters of a
century earlier to mesne lords. The last instances of the exaction of
aids in England occur as late as the reign of James I., who, in 1609,
demanded one for the knighting of the ill-fated Prince Henry, and in
1613 another for the marriage of his daughter Elizabeth to the Prince of
Orange.
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Footnote 116:
25 Ed. III. stat. 5, c. 11.
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III. _Suit and Service._ This phrase expresses the essential obligations
inherent in the very nature of the feudal relation. It may be expanded
(as regards tenure in chivalry) into the duty of attendance at the
lord’s court, whether it met for administrative or judicial purposes, or
for reasons of mere display, and the further duty of military service
under that lord’s banner in the field. Suit, or attendance at court, had
ceased to be an urgent question before the reign of John. Indeed, the
barons, far from objecting to be present there, were gradually
approaching the modern conception, which regards it as a privilege
rather than a burden to attend the _commune concilium_—the embryo
Parliament—of the King. They urged, in especial, that only in a full
feudal court, at which each great Crown tenant had a right to appear,
could any one of their number be judged in a plea involving loss of
lands or of personal status.[117]
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Footnote 117:
See _infra_, under chapter 39.
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Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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