5. (Trespassers in grounds disafforested.)
6. “And moreover we will, that they which had common of pasture in the forest before the perambulation was made, and who were restrained of common by the late perambulation, shall have their common of pasture hereafter in the forest, as freely and largely as they wont to have before the perambulation was made.”
This ordinance was sent to the several counties of England, and ordered to be publicly proclaimed. And in it we see the fruit, and the only fruit, of the papal absolution. It is hardly correct to say, as some historians have said, that the king made no use of the bull of absolution: we believe that he made all the use of it that he ever intended or desired to make. In some way or other, he had felt himself in a measure _uncrowned_ by some regulation made at Lincoln; and hence he says, on obtaining the papal annulment, “We do _resume_ our power.” But then, the only use he makes of that power is to relieve those who, by the disafforesting, “were put out of the forests by the great men,” and who cried to him for help. As for any infringement or retrenchment, either of Magna Charta, or of the Charter of the Forests, not the least step of the kind is imputed to him, even by the most prejudiced of all the historians. Yet are some of these very ready to ascribe to him a desire or intention of this kind; although they admit that for some undiscoverable reason, it never exhibited itself in action!
Such, then, was the real character, and such the practical results, of those disputes and discussions respecting “the charters,” which occurred between 1297 and 1306—_i.e._, between the twenty‐fifth and thirty‐fourth years of Edward’s reign. On the whole, the people were largely gainers by these discussions; but that they were so, is mainly to be attributed to the constant anxiety shown by the king to meet generously all the demands which were made upon him; and to concede to his people all that it was in his power to grant, “without disinheriting the crown.”
One or two other matters of minor, but yet of considerable importance, require to be mentioned at this period of the history; that is, during the last five years of the king’s life.