Concedis justas, leges et consuetudines esse tenendas,
et promittis per te eas esse protegendas, et ad honorem
Dei corroborandas, quas vulgus elegit, secundum vires
tuas ?
(Et respondeat Rex,) Concedo et promitto."
[32] It would appear, from the text, that the Charter of Liberties
and the Charter of the Forest were sometimes called "laws of the
land."
[33] As the ancient coronation oath, given in the text,
has come down from the Saxontimes, the following
remarks of Palgrave will be pertinent, in connection
with the oath, as illustrating the fact that, in those times,
no special authority attached to the laws of the king:
"The Imperial Witenagemot was not a legislative
assembly, in the strict sense of the term, for the whole
Anglo-Saxon empire. Promulgating his edicts amidst
his peers and prelates, the king uses the language of
command; but the theoretical prerogative was modified
by usage, and the practice of the constitution required
that the law should be accepted by the legislatures
(courts) of the several kingdoms.
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