Note 219 — PART III. MAGNA CARTA: ITS FORM AND CONTENTS.

Dr. Stubbs takes an entirely different view. While admitting that there is “so little notice of the villeins in the charter,” he explains the omission apparently on two distinct grounds, (1) that they had fewer grievances to redress than members of other classes, and (2) that they participated in all the grants from which they were not specially excluded. “It was not that they had no spokesman, but that they were free from the more pressing grievances, and benefited from every general provision.” Preface to W. Coventry, II., lxxiii.