But the end was not come even now. The archbishop and the earls knew how often the charters had been confirmed in vain in King Henry’s days; and it was an evil omen that the king, whilst offering to confirm them, was attempting to exact money without a vote of Parliament. They drew up a series of new articles to be added to the Great Charter, and, after some difficulty, forced them upon the king just as he was preparing to embark. Edward saw that he must yield, but he left his son and his ministers to finish the negotiation. As soon as he had sailed the earls went to the Exchequer and forbade the officers of that court to collect the newly-imposed tax; the young Prince Edward was urged to summon the knights of the shire to receive the copies of the charter which his father had promised, and on October 10 the charters were re-issued, with an addition of seven articles, by which the king renounced the right of taxing the nation without national consent. It is true that these articles were not drawn up with such exactness as to prevent all evasion, and Edward I. and Edward III. are accused of using the obscurities of the wording to justify them in transgressing the spirit of the concession. But the confirmation of the charters, however won, was the completion of the work begun by Stephen Langton and the barons at Runnymede. It established finally the principle that for all taxation, direct and indirect, the consent of the nation must be asked, and made it clear that all transgressions of that principle, whether within the letter of the law or beyond it, were evasions of the spirit of the constitution. The seven articles were these: by the first the charters were confirmed; by the second all proceedings in contravention of them were declared null; by the third copies of them were to be sent to the cathedral churches to be read twice a year; and by the fourth the bishops were to excommunicate all who transgressed them. These four were the contribution of the prelates, the condition under which the clergy had been reconciled. By the fifth article the king declared that the exactions, by which the people had been aggrieved, should not be regarded as giving him a customary right to take such exactions any more; by the sixth he promised that he would no more take such “aids, tasks, and prizes but by common assent of the realm;” and by the seventh he undertook not to impose on the wool of the country any such “maletote” or heavy custom in future without their common assent and good will. It would have been clearer if the rights renounced had been absolutely renounced and clearly specified. The king and his servants soon learned that, without taking such taxes and maletotes as had been complained of, they could by negotiating with the merchants raise money indirectly without consulting parliament, but that excuse was never allowed by the parliament to be sufficient, and, when they could, they closed every opening for evasion.