III.: The Intention of Magna Carta.

The barons were merely demanding that the Crown should observe the rules it had laid down for its own guidance: caprice must give way to law. Sheriffs must not usurp the functions of coroners; nor must sheriffs and coroners together usurp those of King’s justiciars. John’s opponents associated these two irregularities, and may have assumed that expressly to abolish one implied an intention to abolish both. Some such supposition would explain a peculiar discrepancy between the Articles and the Charter. While Article 14 demanded redress of one grievance, Magna Carta granted redress of a different one. The earlier document required that coroners should always be associated with the sheriff when he meddled with pleas of the Crown: the Charter forbade sheriffs and coroners to “try” pleas of this description. These two provisions are the complements of each other. Magna Carta would seem to be here incomplete.

The prohibition against sheriffs trying pleas of the Crown was repeated in all reissues of the Charter; and, although not strictly enforced in Henry’s reign, soon became absolute. Thus sheriff Ralph Musard was one of seven justices of eyre who went on circuit in 1221, but he was prohibited from sharing the labours of his colleagues when they sat in Gloucestershire, where he was still sheriff. Under Edward I. no one could determine such pleas unless armed with a royal commission to that effect; and the commission would take the form either of gaol delivery, of trailbaston, or of oyer and terminer.