File:An introduction to American history, European beginnings (1919) (14593903969).jpg

Identifier: introductiontoam00atki (find matches)
Title: An introduction to American history, European beginnings
Year: 1919 (1910s)
Authors: Atkinson, Alice M. (Alice Minerva), b. 1868
Subjects:
Publisher: Boston, New York (etc.) Ginn and company
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: Sloan Foundation

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d of their coming,and realized that of all his subjects there were not morethan seven or eight knights upon whom he could depend,he gave in immediately, for he was as cowardly as he wasoverbearing, and announced that for the sake of peace andthe honor of the kingdom he w^ould grant them all the lawsand liberties they asked. On the fifteenth of June, 1215,King John and a great party of barons met together in awide green meadow, called Runnymede, on the banks ofthe Thames, not far from the city of London and near thecastle of Windsor, wdiere the king w^as staying; and herethe Magna Charta was signed and the kings seal set uponit. To-day in the British Museum in London this docu-ment, the most famous in all English history, may still beseen, with the royal seal hanging from it. Provisions of the Magna Charta. What were the restric-tions that this famous Great Charter imposed on theking? It would be too great a task to go over them all,for there are sixty-three separate articles. The most
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^72> 174 INTRODUCTION TO AMERICAN HISTORY important one, perhaps, is that which declares that what-ever provisions were made for the benefit of the baronsand knights, who were vassals of the king, must in turnbe observed by them toward their own vassals, and soon down to the common men of small property and notitle. Thus the liberties that the charter secured werefor the whole body of Englishmen, not for the rulingclass alone. Another provision reads: No free man shall be taken,or imprisoned, or dispossessed, or outlawed, or banished,or in any way injured, except by the legal judgment ofhis peers, or by the law of the land. Then follows one,in which the king makes the promise, To no one willwe sell, to no one will we deny or delay, right or justice.King John had been violating both of these articles allhis life, as for that matter had many kings before him. Another article declared that the king was not to takeanother mans timber for building castles or for any otherpurpose, withou

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