272 The Period of Constitution Making

words they drew upon the forms of contemporary land
grants.1 The historical backgrounds, the antecedent
ideas or developments which the circumstances of John's
reign brought together and made into Magna Carta (and
these had not been total strangers before), were the feudal
contract, the habit of united action on the part of Eng-
lish nobles, the growth of a nobility with which church
and townsmen could co-operate, and the evolution of the
written formal promises or charters of the post-Conquest
kings. To understand how the king's power became
limited in England it is highly important to watch the
further history of the charter idea.

The reign of John was followed by a long minority,
practically a new thing in English history. In order to

for thejiew king, the Charter

was reissued in greaTEasfeT^uf with a respiting clause
which referred to the omission, among others, of the
clauses just considered.2 Changed conditions, especially
1 It Is a notable feature oŁ the Charter that the barons brought forth no
new scheme of government which they wished to substitute for the great
creations of the Norman and Angevin kings; they were ready to accept
these almost in toto. It may indeed be said that the English baronage by
1215 was made up of men who could largely appreciate and value the won-
derful achievements in government of recent years. What they wished
was not to destroy, but to control; and the same may be said of baronial
conflicts with the king until the baronial opposition was lost in a move-
ment that was truly national.
3 The clause reads: **But because certain articles were included in the
earlier charter which have seemed difficult and doubtful, that is to say
concerning the assessing of scutages and aids, the debts of Jews and others,
freedom of going from or returning to the realm, forests and foresters,
warrens and warreners, and the customs of counties and of river banks and
their guardians, it has pleased the said prelates and magnates to hold these
in respite until we have further counsel, and then we shall provide most
fully for these matters and others which may come up to be amended,
which pertain to the common weal of all and to the peace and position of us
and our realm." Latin original in Stubbs, Select Charters, p. 339. It was
hard for the barons to formulate in words just what they desired in the
matter of scutages, and now that John was removed corporate consent to
aids seemed unnecessary and often inconvenient. In the reissue of 1217,
the difficulty of framing a scutage clause was gotten around by simply
making the king say (in article 44) "Scutage shall henceforth be taken as
it was accustomed to be taken in the time of Henry II. our grandfather."
This was really what the barons wished and the easiest way to indicate it.
The provision about aids and corporate consent disappeared from the
Charter forever. But Henry III. "never took an aid except by the consent
of the great council. It is likely that this was due to the growth of eorpor-