Note 792 — MAGNA CARTA. (continued 4)

See City of London v. Wood (12 Modern Reports, 669). Holt held the clause of Magna Carta to mean that the plaintiff, unless he had his witnesses, could not put a defendant to his oath. Pollock and Maitland, II. 604, seem to concur, to the extent at least of counting this as one of the abuses condemned by c. 38: “The rule which required a suit of witnesses had been regarded as a valuable rule; in 1215 the barons demanded that no exception to it should be allowed in favour of royal officers.”