attained anything like a perfect state in the fifteenth century; but I know not whether there are any essential privileges of our countrymen, any fundamental securities against arbitrary power, so far as they depend upon positive institution, which may not be traced to the time when the house of Plantagenet filled the English throne. FOOTNOTES: [1] The fullest account we possess of these domestic transactions from 1294 to 1298 is in Walter Hemingford, one of the historians edited by Hearne, p. 52-168. They have been vilely perverted by Carte, but extremely well told by Hume, the first writer who had the merit of exposing the character of Edward I. See too Knyghton in Twysden's Decem Scriptores, col. 2492. [2] Walsingham, in Camden's Scriptores Rer. Anglicarum, p. 71-73. [3] Edward would not confirm the charters, notwithstanding his promise, without the words, salvo jure coronæ nostræ; on which the two earls retired from court. When the confirmation was read to the people at St. Paul's, says Hemingford, they blessed the king on seeing the charters with the great seal affixed; but when they heard the captious conclusion, they cursed him instead. At the next meeting of parliament, the king agreed to omit these insidious words, p. 168. [4] The supposed statute, De Tallagio non concedendo, is considered by Blackstone (Introduction to Charters, p. 67) as merely an abstract of the Confirmatio Chartarum. By that entitled Articuli super Chartas, 28 Edw. I., a court was erected in every county, of three knights or others, to be elected by the commons of the shire, whose sole province was to determine offences against the two charters, with the power of punishing by fine and imprisonment; but not to extend to any case wherein a remedy by writ was already provided. The Confirmatio Chartarum is properly denominated a statute, and always printed as such; but in form, like Magna Charta, it is a charter, or letters patent, proceeding from the crown, without even reciting the consent of the realm. And its "teste" is at Ghent, 2 Nov. 1297; Edward having engaged, conjointly with the count of Flanders, in a war with Philip the Fair. But a parliament had been held at London, when the barons insisted on these concessions. The circumstances are not wholly unlike those of Magna Charta. The Lords' Committee do not seem to reject the statute "de tallagio non concedendo" altogether, but say that, "if the manuscript containing it (in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge) is a true copy of a statute, it is undoubtedly a copy of a statute of the 25th, and not of a statute of the 34th of Edward I." p. 230. It seems to me on comparing the two, that the supposed statute de tallagio is but an imperfect transcript of the king's charter at Ghent. But at least, as one exists in an authentic form, and the other is only found in an unauthorized copy, there can be no question which ought to be quoted.