I.: The “Security” or legal Sanction.

The procedure devised for enforcing the Charter was crude: John conferred upon twenty–five of his enemies a legal right to organize rebellion, whenever in their opinion he had broken any one of the provisions of Magna Carta. Violence might be legally used against him, until he redressed their alleged grievances “to their own satisfaction” (secundum arbitrium eorum). If it had been possible to put so violent an expedient into practice, the “sovereignty,” or supreme power in England, would have been split into two. John would have held the sceptre only until his opponents declared that he had broken the Charter, when, by his own previously–granted mandate, it would pass to the twenty–five barons forming what has been variously styled a “Committee of Remonstrance and Constraint” or a “Committee of Rebellion.”

The procedure for redressing grievances is described in some detail; the wronged party must make known his case to four barons of the twenty–five, who would then make it known to the King, and ask redress. If John refused or unduly delayed, compulsion might be used. On the matter of undue delay, the Articles of the Barons said “within a reasonable time to be determined in the Charter.” The Charter did determine this, naming forty days. Compulsion might take any form, except violence against the person of the King, or of his wife or children.