Edward now found himself in a bad situation, both with his own people and with foreign states; and it required all his genius and capacity to extricate himself from such multiplied difficulties and embarrassments. His unjust and exorbitant claims on France and Scotland had engaged him in an implacable war with those two kingdoms, his nearest neighbors: he had lost almost all his foreign alliances by his irregular payments: he was deeply involved in debts, for which he owed a consuming interest: his military operations had vanished into smoke; and, except his naval victory, none of them had been attended even with glory or renown, either to himself or to the nation: the animosity between him and the clergy was open and declared: the people were discontented on account of many arbitrary measures, in which he had been engaged, and what was more dangerous, the nobility, taking advantage of his present necessities, were determined to retrench his power, and by encroaching on the ancient prerogatives of the crown, to acquire to themselves independence and authority. But the aspiring genius of Edward, which had so far transported him beyond the bounds of discretion, proved at last sufficient to reinstate him in his former authority, and finally to render his reign the most triumphant that is to be met with in English story; though for the present he was obliged, with some loss of honor, to yield to the current which bore so strongly against him. The parliament framed an act which was likely to produce considerable innovations in the government. They premised, that, whereas the Great Charter had, to the manifest peril and slander of the king and damage of his people, been violated in many points, particularly by the imprisonment of freemen and the seizure of their goods, without suit, indictment, or trial, it was necessary to confirm it anew, and to oblige all the chief officers of the law, together with the steward and chamberlain of the household, the keeper of the privy seal, the controller and treasurer of the wardrobe, and those who were intrusted with the education of the young prince, to swear to the regular observance of it. They also remarked, that the peers of the realm had formerly been arrested and imprisoned, and dispossessed of their temporalities and lands, and even some of them put to death, without judgment or trial; and they therefore enacted that such violences should henceforth cease, and no peer be punished but by the award of his peers “in parliament.” They required, that, whenever any of the great offices above mentioned became vacant, the king should fill it by the advice of his council, and the consent of such barons as should at that time be found to reside in the neighborhood of the court. And they enacted, that, on the third day of every session, the king should resume into his own hand all these offices, except those of justices of the two benches and the barons of exchequer; that the ministers should for the time be