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MATTHEW OF WESTMINSTER
The flowers of history, especially such as relate to the affairs of Britain. Vol. II. A.D. 1066 to A.D. I307.

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MATTHEW OF WESTMINSTER
The flowers of history, especially such as relate to the affairs of Britain. Vol. II. A.D. 1066 to A.D. I307.
page 187



in whose month the king had put his own words, which he was to propose to his nobles, and said : " The lord the king wishes you to know that he is destitute of treasures, without the support of which the kingdom cannot be secura. For he has lavished great sums in the expenses of his sister, the empress. Much, too, has been lost in the custody of several keepers, whom he has trusted like himself, and who have dealt with what was entrusted to them in a manner very different from what was proper or expedient. But, whatever he may have have done before, for the future discarding foreigners and their counsels, the mise nature of which he has found out to his own loss, he will incline to the counsels of his natural subjects. Therefore he earnestly requests of you pecuniary assistance, in order that the constitution of the kingdom may be confirmed by the royal treasury." But when all had heard this speech with indignation, a murmur, mingled with groans and grief, sounded through the hall, that the king's simplicity had been so often aroused, while the abuse had been always found to redound to the injury of the commonwealth. And also because money was so frequently extorted from them as if they had been slaves of the lowest class, without their deriving any advantage from it. But when the king found that this was the case, desiring to appease this murmur, he promised with an oath that he would never again provoke the nobles of his realm by doing them injury or molest them, or eat away their property by similar exactions, provided they would now grant him a thirtieth part of the moveables throughout England ; and he promised of his own accord to observe inviolably from that time forward the liberties granted by magna charta to his faithful subjects. And because he seemed to be not entirely himself, out of the operation of the sentence which the archbishop, in concert with all the bishops of England, had pronounced against all the violators of the aforesaid charter, which he, being led away by evil counsel, had in some degree violated ; lest he might be suspected for the future, he caused the archbishop publicly to repeat the sentence before alluded to, against all the violators of the said charter, and all who spoke against it ; in such a way that if he, on account of any rancour which he entertained, had failed to observe it, he would be liable to the heaviest curse of the sentence thus pronounced. And the consequence of this conduct was, that he pacified the hearts of his hearers. And ac


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