225.] [** See Appendix II.] [*** Mr Paris, p.38.Hoveden, p.468.Brompton, p.

1021.
Haguistadt, p.

310.] To give greater authenticity to these concessions, Henry lodged a copy of his charter in some abbey of each county, as if desirous that it should be exposed to the view of all his subjects, and remain a perpetual rule for the limitation and direction of his government: yet it is certain that, after the present purpose was served, he never once thought, during his reign, of observing one single article of it; and the whole fell so much into neglect and oblivion, that, in the following century, when the barons, who had heard an obscure tradition of it, desired to make it the model of the Great Charter which they exacted from King John, they could with difficulty find a copy of it in the kingdom.

But as to the grievances here meant to be redressed, they were still continued in their full extent; and the royal authority, in all those particulars, lay under no manner of restriction.

Reliefs of heirs, so capital an article, were never effectually fixed till the time of Magna Charta;[*] and it is evident that the general promise here given, of accepting a just and lawful relief, ought to have been reduced to more precision, in order to give security to the subject.