II.: The Influence of Magna Carta upon later Practice.

This chapter, along with chapters 12 and 14, was discarded by Henry III.; and little difference, if any, can be traced between the practices that prevailed before and after 1215. Mesne lords invariably asked the Crown’s help to collect their aids. They could not legally distrain their freeholders, except through the sheriff, and this was, in part at least, a result of Magna Carta.

Henry III., however, disregarded the rule which forbade the licensing of extraordinary aids. Like his ancestors, he was prepared to grant writs on almost any plausible pretext. From the Patent and Close Rolls, as well as from other sources, illustrations of the Crown’s earlier and later practice can readily be collected: