Thus was England’s greatest king compelled to make to his people the greatest of all constitutional concessions, at the very moment at which by his new organization of Parliament he had placed the nation for the first time in a position in which they could compel him to fulfill it. It was to some extent a compromise, in which both parties felt themselves justified in putting their own interpretation on the terms by which they had been reconciled, but it is not the less a landmark in the history of England, second only to Magna Carta. The _confirmatio cartarum_ is the fulfillment, made now to the whole consolidated people, of the promises made in the charter to a nation just awaking to its unity and to the sense of its own just claims. [Sidenote: Dissatisfaction of Edward with his subjects. ] [Sidenote: Re-confirmation of the Charters. ] Before we turn again to the military work of the reign, the war for the subjection of Scotland, which was one of the main causes of Edward’s difficulties at this time, and which furnished him with hard work for the rest of his life, we may briefly sum up the sequel of the great constitutional crisis. Not the least of the causes that led to Edward’s irritation, and provoked him to impolitic violence, was the thought that the nation did not trust him. From the beginning of the reign he had labored indefatigably for their good; he had amended their laws, and had given them what, to all intents and purposes, was a new and free constitution. He felt that he had a right to their confidence, and a right to direct, if not also to control, the mechanism which he had created. But as yet it was only thirty years since the Battle of Evesham. Men were still alive who remembered the countless tergiversations of Henry III., and who, so warned, could scarcely help suspecting that Edward in the hour of need would repudiate his obligations, as his father had done. They did not profess to be satisfied with the act of confirmation which Edward sealed at Ghent on November 5, 1297. As soon as he returned from Flanders, in the following year, the earls insisted on a renewal of the act, and, before they would join him in the Scottish war, the king had to promise to grant it. In March, 1299 the promise was fulfilled, but the confirmation was even now regarded as incomplete. The enforcement of the charter of the forests involved a new survey of the forests, and the king, when he promised that this should be done, made a distinct reservation of the rights of the crown, and of some questions which had just been referred to the court of Rome. The reservation appeared to the people to be an evident token of insincerity; and to calm the excitement Edward, two months afterwards, executed an unconditional confirmation. Still, however, it was declared that the forest reforms were intentionally delayed; and in a full parliament, held at London in March, 1300, the confirmation was repeated, additional articles being