"Ecclesiastical privileges were not so exclusively priestly privileges as we sometimes fancy. They sheltered not only ordained ministers, but all ecclesiastical officers of every kind; the Church courts also claimed jurisdiction in the causes of widows and orphans. In short, the privileges for which Thomas contended transferred a large part of the people, and that the most helpless part, from the bloody grasp of the King's courts to the milder jurisdiction of the bishop."--FREEMAN, _Historical Essays_. [10] Walter of Coventry. (Rolls Series.) [11] Roger of Wendover. (Rolls Series.) [12] "Clause by clause the rights of the commons are provided for as well as the rights of the nobles; the interest of the freeholder is everywhere coupled with that of the barons and knights; the stock of the merchant and the wainage of the villein are preserved from undue severity of amercement as well as the settled estate of the earldom or barony. The knight is protected against the compulsory exaction of his services, and the horse and cart of the freeman against the irregular requisition even of the sheriff."--STUBBS, _Constitutional History_. [13] "Quod Anglicana Ecclesia libera sit."--_Magna Charta_, I. [14] "This most important provision may be regarded as a summing-up of the history of Parliament so far as it can be said yet to exist. It probably contains nothing which had not been for a long time in theory a part of the Constitution: the kings had long consulted their council on taxation; that council consisted of the elements that are here specified. But the right had never yet been stated in so clear a form, and the statement thus made seems to have startled even the barons.... It was for the attainment of this right that the struggles of the reign of Henry III. were carried on; and the realisation of the claim was deferred until the reign of his successor. In these clauses the nation had now obtained a comparatively clear definition of the right on which their future political power was to be based."--STUBBS, _Constitutional History_. [15] "Ut quod omnes similiter tangit ab omnibus approbetur." [16] Stubbs, _Constitutional History_. [17] Stubbs, _Ibid_. [18] "Analogous examples may be taken from the practice of the ecclesiastical assemblies, in which the representative theory is introduced shortly before it finds its way into parliament."--STUBBS, _Constitutional History_. [19] Stubbs, _Constitutional History_. [20] Stubbs, _Constitutional History_. [21] F. York Powell, _England to 1509_. [22] Sir Courtenay Ilbert, _Parliament_. [23] Ilbert, _Parliament_. [24] Bagehot, _The English Constitution_. [25] Bagehot, _Ibid_. [26] Stubbs, _Constitutional History_. [27] Stubbs, _Constitutional History_.